Modern Clan Politics: The Power of Blood in Kazakhstan and Beyond 0295984473, 9780295984476

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JACKSON SCHOOL PUBLICATIONS IN INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

JACKSON SCHOOL PUBLICATIONS IN INTERNATIONAL STUDIES Senator Henry M. Jackson was convinced that the study of the history, cultures, political systems, and languages of the world's major regions was an essential prerequisite for wise decision making in international relations. In recognition of his deep commitment to higher education and advanced scholarship, this series of publications has been established through the generous support of the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, in cooperation with the Henry M. Jackson School ofInternational Studies, and the University of Washington Press.

The Crisis of Leninism and the Decline of the Left: The Revolutions of 1989, edited by Daniel Chirot Sino-Soviet Nonnalization and Its International Implications, 1945-1990, by Lowell Dittmer Contradictions: Artistic Life, the Socialist State, and the Chinese Painter Li Huasheng, by Jerome Silbergeld with Gong Jisui

The Found Generation: Chinese Communists in Europe during the Twenties, by Marilyn A. Levine

Rules and Rights in the Middle East: Democracy, Law, and Society, edited by Ellis Goldberg, Resat Kesaba, and Joel S. Migdal Can Europe Work? Germany and the Reconstruction of Postcommunist Societies, edited by Stephen Hanson and Willfried Spohn Marxist Intellectuals and the Chinese Labor Movement: A Study ofDeng Zhongxia (1894-1933), by Daniel Y. K. Kwan Essential Outsiders: Chinese and Jews in the Modem Transformation of Southeast Asia and Central Europe, edited by Daniel Chirot and Anthony Reid Days of Defeat and Victory, by Yegor Gaidar The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India, by Paul R. Brass Modem Clan Politics: The Power of"Blood" in Kazakhstan and Beyond, by Edward Schatz

MODERN CLAN POllT1CS Tke Power of "B(ooJ" LH- Ku-~u-k~tU-H- u-nl. Beaonl.

EDWARD SCHATZ

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS

Seattle and London

This publication was supported in part by the Jackson School Publications Fund, established through the generous support of the Henry M. Jackson Foundation and other donors, in cooperation with the Henry M. Jackson School ofInternational Studies and the University of Washington Press. The book also received support from the Donald R. Ellegood International Publications Endowment.

© 2004 by the University of Washington Press Printed in the United States of America Designed by Veronica Seyd 121110090807060504 543 21 ISBN 0-295-98447-3

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. University of Washington Press PO Box 50096, Seattle, WA 9845 www.washington.edu/uwpress Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data can be found at the back of this book. The paper used in this publication is acid-free and recycled from 10 percent post-consumer and at least 50 percent pre-consumer waste. It meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39·48-1984- §@ Parts of chapters 4 and 6 have been published in slightly different form as "The Politics of Multiple Identities: Lineage and Ethnicity in Kazakhstan" in Europe-Asia Studies 52(3):489-506; chapter 4 has also appeared in part in "Framing Strategies and Non-Conflict in Multi-Ethnic Kazakhstan," Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 6(2):70-92. Thanks to Europe-Asia Studies (www.tandfco.uk) and Nationalism and Ethnic Politics for permission to use the material.

Preface ix A Note on Transliteration

XIV

Introduction: Modern Clan Politics xv

P"'1"'t One: Tke Rer-1"'oJud:wn.. of C~lti 1/

2/

Kinship and Modernity 3

Nomads, Diffuse Authority, and Sovietization

21

3 / Two Faces of Soviet Power 46 4/ Continuity and Change after the Soviet Collapse 72

P"'1"'t Two: Tke Po (i-tLc",( 0a"-",HLi.c of In..f01'''HLC4-( TLti 5 / Clan Conflict 95 6/ Clan Metaconflict 113

P"'1"'t Tkree: M"'"-"'gn..bC~lti 7 / A Vicious Cycle? Kinship and Political Change 139

Conclusions: Kinship and "Normal" Politics 163 Appendix: Methods 175 Notes 185 Bibliography Index 245

223

I began to study clan politics because of what I found in the political world: clan divisions continue to animate power relations in a wide array of contexts. This is true not only across the southern tier of the ex-USSR, which is the empirical focus of this book, but also in broad parts of the Middle East, East and North Africa, and Southeast Asia. Moreover, such kinship-based divisions are not simply residual factors of limited political import but often lie at the center of politics. In this book, I explore the relationships between clans and the paramount power in the contemporary world, the modern state. What sparked my initial interest in these issues was the sense that dominant theories were out of sync with empirical developments across the southern tier of the former Soviet Union. Although they were criticized, modernization and neomodernization paradigms continued to inspire background thinking on identity politics, permitting no conceptual space for clan politics. In these approaches, the political significance of clans was understood to be, restricted in two ways: spatially, to the remote margins of the state system where traditional and diffuse authority patterns prevailed, and temporally, to historical periods before the emergence of modern state structures. But kinship divisions have both broader and more lasting significance for politics than we normally recognize. Of course, their significance changes across space and time; it is a variable, not a constant. What is surprising, from the perspective of our usual theoretical concerns, is how important clans continue to be. The former Soviet southern tier offers an array of cases through which to study this relatively underexamined phenomenon. This book also tells a story about the persistence and transformation of clan politics in Kazakhstan. The exercise is largely one in induction. That is, I move from an empirical phenomenon to theory IX

x

Preface

construction, although in no sense did I approach the issue with a theoretical blank slate. Tipping the balance toward induction seemed warranted, given the lack of attention paid to the issue. As a practical matter, this meant that I gathered data using intensive, rather than extensive, strategies. I felt that it was important first to capture accurately the issue through close study of a single country (Kazakhstan, in this case) rather than rushing to broad comparison. We should not avoid generalization; we should, however, ground our comparative enterprise in the specifics of time and place. Intensive focus on a single country makes good sense for another reason. It can highlight actual causal mechanisms, where studies that cover a large number of country cases can only find correlations. Moreover, the coding strategies that undergird cross-case statistical evaluation capture certain factors better than others. Identity politics-which necessarily involves perceptual variables, discourses, and symbols that inform group behavior and self-understandingsbenefits from an intensive, rather than an extensive, perspective. This book is not a story about Kazakhstan for its own sake. Ex-Soviet Central Asia tells us much about the encounter between clan-based societies and modern state institutions. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan all experienced a heavy-handed state push for modernization that included coercive attempts to root out clan relationships. Yet, clan networks remain central to political life. Among these cases, Kazakhstan stands out further; it felt the state effort most dramatically. Whereas the populations of the other parts of Central Asia and the Caucasus were geographically more remote and could more easily resist the Soviet effort, the same cannot be argued for Kazakhstan. The latter felt the brunt of Sovietization. Why clan politics persists in a most unlikely case is the central puzzle that inspires this research. To undertake a study of clan politics is to rely on the widest array of methodological strategies available. Eclecticism is the best way to sort through biases and attempt to minimize their impact on the final product. In addition to using Western and Soviet secondary sources, I examined newspapers, magazines, scholarly journals from across the region, conducted elite interviews in several cities, led in-depth interviews, ran focus groups in three regions, engaged in ethnographic observation of events of cultural and political relevance, and exam-

Preface

Xl

ined documents of particular importance from the Central State Archives of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The appendix provides detail on these strategies. To undertake a study of clan politics is also to tax one's sense of humor. Because this is a phenomenon that many individuals prefer to conceal rather than reveal, I cannot count the number of false leads generated by innocently offered misinformation. With good cheer, many local scholars steered me away from dangerously unproductive fates, sorting through raw data and the somewhat alien perspectives of a Western social scientist. Particular thanks go to Gulnara Dadabaeva, Igor Savin, and Serik Aidossov, each of whom modeled intellectual integrity and a manifest willingness to exchange ideas globally. They also became true friends as I spent many months away from home. Nurbulat Masanov offered trenchant, incisive, and thoughtful analysis, as well as unparalleled access to important data. His hospitality was incredible - rivaled only by his love for sport. Meruert Abuseitova and the Institute of Oriental Studies provided an excellent institutional connection in Almaty. Bulat Zhanaev of the Central State Archives of the Republic of Kazakhstan was kind enough not only to facilitate access to documents on the 1920S and 1930S, but also to provide an insider's view on how I might best use the collection. Raushan Muserova and Gavin Helf at the International Research and Exchanges Board made Kazakhstan a home away from home for most of 1998. Bhavna Dave modeled the kind of work, and the kind of intellectual and personal integrity, that I admired. Steve Sabol, Saulesh Esenova, and Sean Roberts showed me that extended field research and sanity preservation are compatible - even complementary - processes. Saule Moldabekova at the Kazakhstan office of the American Councils provided tremendous logistical support for a return stay in 2002. Alma Qunanbai and Uli Shamiloglu (both of the University of Wisconsin-Madison) made learning the Kazakh language a joy; without their talents, my ability to grasp the complexity of the issues would have suffered. I activated my knowledge of Kazakh by living with the Zhatqanbaev family in 1997 under a predissertation grant from the Social Science Research Council. SSRC's project, which led a ten-year existence, is a model of how funding agencies can successfully train social scientists to study the developing world. Deep thanks

Xli

Preface

go to Natalia Shurygina and Vanya Shurygin, who became good friends as they began in 1989 to cultivate my interest in the ex-USSR, always with humility, humanity, and intelligence. Countless others in Central Asia-many whose names appear in the pages that follow, either directly or pseudonymously - showed classic Kazakh hospitality not only by letting me into their lives, but also by allowing me to glimpse how they view their lives. I hope that I have been true to their voices. Beyond Central Asia, lowe a huge debt of gratitude to a range of institutions and people who allowed me the creative space to work and cultivated the tools for doing so. In an environment that combined analytic rigor with intellectual freedom, the Political Science Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison proved the perfect place to cultivate tools for pursuing a sometimes untraditional research agenda. Mark Beissinger epitomized the patient mentor, always finding the time to listen and take seriously his students' intellectual journeys. I have internalized more of his outlook than he would be comfortable to admit. Crawford Young and Michael Schatzberg forced me to be self-conscious about the comparative enterprise, always suggesting that students of Central Asian politics are wise to consider the paths that African states and societies have traveled. Far from Wisconsin, Jorge Dominguez provided support, professional socialization, and analytic insight through all stages of the project. On the institutional end, the International Research and Exchanges Board generously funded my field research in 1998 and a return trip in 2002. The Social Science Research Council provided funding through its International Predissertation Research Program in 1997-98 and its Eurasia Program in 1999-2000. I am grateful to have spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow at the Davis Center for Russian Studies at Harvard University, working on this project. In Cambridge, the intellectual enthusiasm of Lucan Way was addictive. I am also thankful for a semester spent at the Kellogg Institute for International Affairs at the University of Notre Dame and to Scott Mainwaring and his staff for providing an unrivaled work environment. I finished writing the book while at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Special thanks to Uday Desai for creating the conditions in which I could complete the project. Thanks to Anna Gregg for her research assistance. Michael Duckworth at the University of Washington Press expressed

Preface

Xlll

an interest in this project and ushered it through the review process. Thanks to him, three anonymous reviewers, Marilyn Trueblood, and Julie Van Pelt for making it a better book. They are absolved, of course, of any responsibility for remaining shortcomings. My biggest thanks are reserved for my wife, Lara Dominguez, whose support has made the project possible and the experience of creating it a meaningful one. Grateful that she agrees that neither matrilineal nor patrilineal descent is adequate, I dedicate this book to her.

A NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION

Transliterations from the Russian are based on the Library of Congress standard. Transliterations from Kazakh are based on the standard developed by the Central Eurasian Studies Society (http://cessJas .harvard.edulcesr/CESR_trans_cyr.html), although diacritical marks have been removed to make the English versions less awkward. Many of the places and people referred to in the text have both Russianlanguage names and similar, but not identical, Kazakh-Ianguage equivalents. I have tried to be sensitive to context in identifying the language that is most appropriate. For example, if an interviewee preferred to speak Kazakh, I transliterate from Kazakh when referencing her name. If she preferred to speak Russian, I transliterate from Russian.

XIV

1n:!:rod.RctLOl'L: Mod.erl'L C("-l'L Po(itLc~ The role of kinship ties and kinship rivalries is not merely a curious anachronism. It has important consequences for the political system as a whole.-Carl H. Lande

One way to spot a foreigner visiting ex-Soviet Central Asia is to look at his shoes. Like that of his local counterpart, his footwear may be expensive or cheap, polished or scuffed, fashionable or ordinary. Given worldwide commerce, moreover, it may have been produced anywhere across the globe. What distinguishes his shoes is that he ties his laces tightly, while his counterpart ties them loosely or opts for laceless varieties. l How Central Asians tie their shoes is a clue about the significance ofkin ties. Since so much of a Central Asian day is spent visiting relatives and friends, and since shoes are doffed at the entrance to each home, it is a matter of some significance to learn to wear one's shoes in the proper, local way. The alternative - continually to lag behindeventually becomes tiresome. Patterns of political life often reveal themselves in the mundane, implicit, and unspoken. They are rooted in everything ordinary-in that which requires no remark. In Central Asia, kinship ties are like the loosely laced shoes that give them away; they are a silent reality that pervades everyday life. What role they play for political and social actors and why they playa political role - when dominant approaches expect them not to-is the subject of this book. We seldom expect kinship-based divisions to occupy a prominent place in modern political life. In the era of the nation-state, we expect xv

XVI

Introduction

fi)C"-re 1.1. Map of Kazakhstan and Central Asia SouTce~entral Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/kz.html.

that national-level allegiances and statewide bureaucratic structures supersede local attachments and marginalize local institutions. How can these attachments stand up to the pressures of nation and state building, let alone to the more recent transformative powers of globalization? The general assumption is that they do not. From this perspective, this chapter's title- "Modern Clan Politics" -seems a contradiction in terms. We expect that the more complete the coercive apparatus of the state, the less likely clan politics would survive into modernity. One of the most coercive regimes ever witnessed, however, was unable to eliminate clan divisions and preclude their role in political life. Since the Soviet collapse in 1991, we have caught glimpses of clan relationships in politics. In Chechnya, subethnic teips became ensnared in Moscow's decision to launch a bloody invasion in 1994; some groups were more closely allied with Russia and others more staunch supporters of independence. 2 In Uzbekistan, attachments to kin and locale that permeated everyday life even during the Soviet period continued to dominate a predominantly rural society.3 In Kyr-

Introduction

XVII

gyzstan, a north-south divide that had its roots in segmentary divisions helped to define the bases for political appointments. 4 Subethnic clans were likewise the major actors in Tajikistan, which descended into a protracted civil conflict that defied easy resolution.5 On a superficial level, the persistence of clan politics seemed to represent one of many failures of the Soviet state; it appeared that Moscow, in spite of its proclamations to the contrary, had simply failed to transform the building blocks of identity along a vast southern periphery. Indeed, many of the newly independent state apparatuses that inherited Soviet structures were weak enough that it was difficult to imagine that the Soviet experiment represented anything less than a failure to penetrate its far-flung populations. 6 But this was only a surface appearance. Today's challenges of state weakness should not color our understandings of Soviet-era processes. Far from failing to transform the southern periphery, the Soviet state effected radical social and cultural change. The question then becomes: in what ways, and with what consequences, were the Soviets able to transform the populations that if!.habited these regions? To ask such a question is to recognize the unusual scope and capacity of Soviet power, although it does not mean accepting the terms of debate about whether the Soviet Union was "totalitarian" or not.7 How do we square the transformative power of the Soviet state, on the one hand, with the outcomes we witness across the former USSR, on the other? Why did the profound social changes set in motion by an unusually powerful state result in politically salient subethnic divisions? This general question is germane to the entire region; it is all the more relevant for Kazakhstan. On the one hand, Kazakhstan underwent radical socioeconomic and cultural changes in the Soviet period. The Soviet state undermined the nomadic economy of extensive pastoralism, replacing it with large-scale, mechanized agriculture, extractive industries, and manufacturing. By the end of the Soviet era, the republic was predominantly urban, industrialized, and held up as a model of socialist development. Near-universal literacy, broad-based education, and an extensive communications and transportation infrastructure added further impetus to change traditional social structures and identities. Observers debate whether or not these transformations were necessary, coercive, beneficial, or detrimental to the population of Kazakhstan; whatever else they were, they were profound. On the other hand, a vibrant politics based on subethnic clans that

xviii

Introduction

had predated Soviet rule (what Kazakhs call zhuz and ru 8 ) emerged in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. The first president of the independent state hinted at the breadth of the problem, decrying the attempts of local elites to establish "tribal" ideology and clan-related "protectionism."9 One scholar wrote in a semiofficial publication: All the pressure groups in the power structures of Kazakhstan are exposed to the spirit of tribalism and clanness, which always hovered in the political life of the republic on a negative level [sic], but which had a second birth with the period of sovereignty and the crisis that enveloped the economy, education, and culture, in a country where rural residents comprise 60 percent of the population with [their] agrarian-patriarchal mentality, where the influx of marginals with their unchanging [stereotipnoe] consciousness acquired threatening proportions. lO In the 1990S, the subethnic pedigree of political actors in Kazakhstan became a critical factor in the allocation of political resources (especially posts in the state bureaucracy) and economic resources (especially access to revenues from extractive industries). Among nationand state-builders, the role of subethnic divisions became the subject of a hot political debate. In light of seventy years of the Soviet state-building project, these developments seemed surprising. In addition to providing the engine for modernization, the Soviet state had dedicated itself to the eradication of these divisions from political and social life; Moscow fully expected that progressive modernization and ethnicization would bring with it the marginalization of these identities from politics. Why did politicized expressions of subethnic identity persist in Kazakhstan? I begin by posing two questions. First, why do subethnic clan divisions persist, thereby animating political competition, in a context where they were targeted for elimination? Second, what kind of political competition do they generate, as a result? That is, what is distinctive about clan politics that distinguishes it from identity politics based on other divisions such as ethnic, racial, religious, gender, or class differences? These issues - the persistence of identity categories and the particular forms that identity-based competition assumes-are crucial to our ongoing efforts to sort out the ways in which group solidarities and power relations intersect.

Introduction

XIX

OBJECTIVES

The story of clan politics in Kazakhstan is important because it helps us to pursue several objectives. First, it serves as an analytic point of departure from which to conceptualize the distinctiveness of clan politics. Much discussion of "identity politics" implies, even if it does not supply evidence to support the claim, that a fundamental logic underlies all forms of group-based competition. For this reason, Horowitz subsumes religious, ethnic, and racial cleavages under the single taxonomic canopy of "ethnicity."ll And yet, we know that religious divisions inspire a politics rooted in supernatural justifications for behavior; we know that gender politics interrogates the publicprivate dichotomy; we know that racial politics begin with scientistic ideologies about phenotypical differences. By charting out a distinctive clan politics, this book helps us to unravel the variety of competition that we facilely label "identity politics." If in the West, clan politics is the subject of an academic discussion, for many populations across Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Middle East, Mrica, and Southeast Asia, clan politics propels real-world challenges to governance, economic performance, and, in some cases, stability. In Weber's perspective (to be taken up more directly in the next chapter), kinship groups inspire irrationality in the legal system and fuel patrimonial ism in governance. 12 A second objective is therefore closely related to the first: to understand the distinctive dynamic of clan politics is to come closer to understanding the challenges that it poses. A third objective is to use the Kazakhstan case to suggest a way to bridge the gap between primordialism and constructivism. These two scholarly perspectives on identity politics begin with opposite premises about change and continuity in collective identities. Primordialists take group identities as a given that is scarcely changeable. Constructivists contend that groupness is a sociological artifact-a human creation that must be problematized and historicized. The sometimes shrill tenor of the debate aside, most scholars recognize that group solidarities change and evolve over time (per the constructivists), but they do so within identifiable limits (per the primordialists). This book suggests that we need not choose between radical transformation and essential stasis; in fact, to choose sides obscures important aspects of the problem. A final objective is classically empiricist: to study a geographic region

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Introduction

about which we know strikingly little. The Central Asian cases raise theoretical issues directly, but I consider them not as the servant of theory. Central Asia is again tied to the outside world, after a long hiatus that began when the steamship suddenly marginalized overland trade routes. Its economic links, security concerns, and statebuilding prospects are intertwined with our own and recommend that we learn more. I focus on identity-related issues, emphasizing subethnic clan ties and paying considerable attention to their interrelationships with ethnic divisions. This is a topic of critical importance not only for addressing theory, but also for discovering the reality that people face as a matter of daily life.

APPROACH

Scholars of identity politics assume either that groups are given and change little over time (primordialists) or that groups are fluid and change much (constructivists). Constructivism has been ascendant oflate, since it posits that identity is open to various social, economic, and political influences that can be closely examined. Constructivism falls short, however, in explaining the persistence of some identity categories. In a world of fluidity and change that constructivism emphasizes, persistence becomes a puzzle. The theoretical leverage offered by constructivist approaches needs to be improved to account equally for stasis and persistence as for fluidity and change. The approach taken here offers constructivism a way to account for both change and persistence. Borrowing a page from historical institutionalism, I assume that if an identity persists over time, we should be able to locate a mechanism that propels this persistence. 13 Just as historical institutionalists contend that change and stasis in institutions can be traced to mechanisms that underlie the institutions themselves, the same can be argued for collective identities. Groupness does not survive merely by definition; rather, it survives (if and when it does) because of identifiable mechanisms of identity reproduction. Consequently, if such mechanisms are disrupted or changed, we can expect concurrent changes in the shape, meaning, and salience of associated group identities. This focus on the mechanisms of identity reproduction fits not just with the constructivist's concern with historicizing and problematizing group identities. It also helps those who would view group ness as

Introduction

XXI

an independent variable with causal significance. By learning the extent and type of social transformations that occur to identity relationships, we better specify the nature of the identity to which we seek to attribute causal weight. That is, by pinpointing the mechanisms that underlie group affiliations, we better identify changes to the character of those affiliations and, therefore, what impact they have on politics. The approach used here also takes emic (i.e., insider) perspectives seriously. This goes against the trend in many studies of identity politics. Many analysts understand groups as unproblematic and therefore take their causal significance to be straightforward. As a result, while they may agree with constructivists about the changing nature of identities, they find analytic reasons to retain primordialism's assumptions. Identities certainly are constructed, the argument goes, but by viewing them rather as given, we identify their impacU4 This step is to be applauded for its opportunism. Social scientists make the assumptions that they do because doing so helps to solve concrete research problems. These analysts are primordialists by convenience rather than by conviction. On the other hand, we lose something critical when we ignore emic perspectives. It comes to matter little what meanings are attributed to group solidarities. Being a Palestinian in 1949 is assumed to have the same social and political implications as being a Palestinian in 2004, notwithstanding all that we know about a turbulent political history that intervened. Being Palestinian entails different meanings in different contexts, so we can be sure that it will help to generate a different political dynamic in each time and place. Of course, insiders have no monopoly on truth, but lurking behind consistency in nomenclature may be profound changes that insider perspectives can begin to unravel. THE ARGUMENT OUTLINED

When social systems collide-as they did when Russian imperial expansion met Central Asian populations in the nineteenth centurythe new order necessarily changes preexisting patterns oflocal authority and customary identity. But traditional relationships do not disappear, nor do traditional identities and indigenous categories evaporate. As the imposed order penetrates more deeply into the every-

XXII

Introduction

day life of the population, it circumscribes the legitimacy of traditional identities and categories, redefining their role in contemporary social and political life and changing their meaning. "Institutional syncretism" is the result, even if that is not the outcome that elites would prefer. 15 The architects of an imposed order are often self-conscious about their trans formative efforts. That is, they are not content to let a new hybrid architecture emerge naturally from circumstances. Just as subjects view the imposed order as illegitimate, these agents view local populations as manifesting behaviors, identities, and institutions that are themselves illegitimate. Transforming society to new dictates is viewed as a political imperative. The Soviet state stands out for the scope and ambition of its transformative campaigns, and the willingness to combine raw coercion with pervasive propaganda in the effort. Branding traditional practices as illegitimate, Moscow expected that the vestiges of the traditional order would lose their social and political import. The effort was unusual in its extent, but it was not unique. 16 But, with regard to clan-based systems, these campaigns to undermine traditional practices have unintended consequences. Whether waged in clearly coercive ways as during the Soviet period or pursued more subtly as in the post-Soviet context, they activate the most important inherent quality of clan divisions: their concealability. Kinship divisions are not rooted in visible markers that establish identity and difference, but rather in an exchange of genealogical information that can occur privately. Thus, the attempt to remove clan from legitimate public space gives the subject population reasons to hide its traditional practices and affiliations. By driving these behaviors and identities underground, the state infuses clan divisions with explosive potential. If, as James Scott suggests, state-led campaigns of this sort seek to make traditional practices more "scrutable" in order to control them better,I7 the result in this case is a tragedy for the state: clan divisions become less visible and therefore less prone to state control. The irony of unintended consequences goes further. Moscow's drive to bring state control to the exchange of goods (social, economic, or political goods) willy-nilly provided a mechanism for clan divisions to reproduce themselves. Underground networks allowed access to scarce goods in the all-pervasive "gray market" that developed under Soviet rule. Kin-based networks, concealable and less likely to be

Introduction

XXlll

detected by agents of state surveillance, provided such access across much of the Soviet southern tier. Clan identity thus became an asset when manifested in private but a liability when expressed in public. This is the enduring legacy of state socialism and the imprint it left upon clan politics that is evident in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. The mechanism that unintentionally fueled clan identities into the 1990S also gave shape to the particular kinds of clan-based politics that we witness. First, we see networks that occupy illicit social niches vying for control over scarce resources. Second, we see a broad discursive battle that plays on the ongoing public stigma attached to clan divisions. From the perspective of former Soviet Central Asia, the usual image that modern statehood and clan identities are mutually exclusive must be considered incomplete. State-led coercion and modernization do not necessarily dissolve clan divisions; in fact, such processes may lend them import. Moreover, the particular ways in which these processes play themselves out leave a profound imprint on the shape of the ongoing identity dynamic. As ideal types, states and clans may operate by deeply divergent logics. When they collide in real-world contexts, such different logics produce syncretic outcomes that become the hybrid stuff of contemporary social and political life. This has important implications for cases beyond the former USSR where kinship and power continue to intersect. If state-led campaigns to root out clan divisions may in fact enhance their political role, then finding ways to reconcile the diverse logics of states and clans in unified institutional settings becomes the task of the day. Locating the means by which subethnic kin-based identities can be accommodated through institutional "crafting" may prove to be a more effective means of preserving stability, enhancing state performance, and ensuring representative government than trying to crush clans and undercut tradition. If the goal is to create a Weberian state in which "loyalty is devoted to impersonal and functional purposes," rather than to kin ties, the means to achieving this goal is-in a seeming paradox-to relegitimate clans as an acceptable part of political and sociallife. 18

STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK

To develop this argument, I divide the book into two parts. In the first, I treat clan persistence as something that requires explanation.

XXIV

Introduction

I document how state socialism was implicated in the production of clan divisions as networks. The state both transformed clan divisions (by limiting their salience to illicit and private niches) and reproduced them (by providing impetus for their private expression). In the second part, I treat clan relationships as a factor contributing to political outcomes. I examine how clans (both as networks and as contests over identity categories) affect state-building efforts. This part treats the persistence of clan divisions as having political significance of its own. Chapter 1 offers a framework for considering kinship divisions in an array of contexts. It shows that while kinship divisions often remain below the researcher's field of vision (since they are less observable than other identity categories to which states give positive sanction), they may be more politically important than more visible divisions. It then elaborates why Central Asia provides a window into the study of clan politics. In Central Asia, state structures were a Soviet creation; the region is an unusual opportunity to see how the imposition of statehood reshapes and constructs clan identity politics. Kazakhstan sharpens the question further, since it experienced social, demographic, and economic transformations that were even more dramatic than those its neighbors experienced. Kazakhstan is a chance to view how state actions affected-and unintentionally fueled-kinship-based political competition. Chapters 2 through 4 document the encounter between the diffuse authority patterns of a nomadic population and state structures. They cover the onset, consolidation, maturation, and legacies of Soviet rule. I first establish a conceptual and empirical baseline in the preSoviet period as a way to identify transformations. I show that kinshipbased divisions were the glue of social and political relations before the onset of Soviet power. A harsh steppe environment placed critical limits on the scope of capital accumulation, thereby minimizing social stratification and privileging horizontal kin-based ties. The nomadic pastoral economy was the mechanism that reproduced the kinship system. Soviet power transformed the identity dynamic, but not in the ways intended. Building on secondary sources in Russian and Kazakh, I examined documents from the Central State Archives of the Republic of Kazakhstan to learn why early Soviet efforts to eradicate clan divisions did not succeed. Until Stalin dealt a powerful blow to the

Introduction

xxv

economy of nomadic pastoralism in the early 1930S, the clan remained the basic functional unit of society. This section argues that Stalin eliminated the traditional basis for clan organization, but he replaced it with a novel mechanism: the shortage economy. Clan-related behaviors were broadly criminalized and removed from the public sphere, but kin links nonetheless flourished privately in the shortage economy. Networks of access to goods proliferated along the former Soviet southern tier. The state-led effort unintentionally tapped a critical, inherent quality of subethnic clan divisions: their concealability. Clan networks were valuable because they were elusive: they could be hidden from the agents of Soviet surveillance. As Soviet power receded in the 199os, continuities with the Soviet era remained strong. Chapter 4 covers these legacies, highlighting first how the structure of the political economy had changed little for ordinary people. Access to hard-to-get goods (consumer wares, capital, and political power) remained restricted, as a hierarchically built polity and economy created privileged nodes of access. In such a context, clan identity was a resource. A powerful second legacy lay in the public discourse on identity groups. I show that a modernist discourse continued to stigmatize clan relationships and to drive them from legitimate public space into private niches. In chapters 5 and 6, I consider the imprint that Soviet rule (and its residue in the post-Soviet period) had on the social meanings and practical utility of clan relationships. First, as a result of the Soviet political economy and its notable legacies in the post-Soviet era, clan became and remains important as the basis for access networks. Using data on political appointments and clan background, chapter 5 discerns the lines of competition at the national, regional, and local levels among clan-based networks. In particular, it critically evaluates the widespread assertion (made by journalists both in Central Asia and abroad) that President Nursultan Nazarbaev's clan-based network dominated political and economic life in the republic. It finds empirical support for this assertion, but within limits. Second, if the jockeying among clan-based networks might be called "clan conflict," chapter 6 covers the discursive battles surrounding clan politics, which might be understood as clan "metaconflict." Because kin-based divisions continue to be removed from public space, political and social actors often possess quite sketchy

XXVI

Introduction

knowledge of the background of other actors. But this sketchiness of knowledge is an opportunity for political entrepreneurs to speculate grandly and use the language of clans to discredit their political opponents. Thus, the modernist discourse that stigmatizes clan divisions as "regressive" or "primitive" means that political actors must find ways to deny acting in a "clannish" fashion. Is Central Asia stuck in a closed cycle where the state constructs clans as inimical, which in turn drive clan networks further underground, potentially destabilizing the state? Chapter 7 considers this question, focusing specifically on the impact that changes in economic and political institutions in the 1990S had on social networks, and the salience of kin-based networks and other types of ties. Based on focusgroup research and ethnographic data, it finds that the state's role remains prominent, and an array of other factors. In the book's conclusion, I ask whether or not clan divisions can be reconstructed as a "normal" part of political life. Are kinship ties inherently incompatible with modern politics? Without minimizing the difficulty, I argue that they are not. Since much of the challenge that clans pose for states is the product of state policies themselves, there is considerable room for state elites self-consciously to "craft" solutions to the problems facing kinship-rich societies.

PART ONE

1

[K)inship in these settings is not merely a logical apparatus consisting of complicated rules for terminology and marriage; it is instead a way of apprehending and ordering the world, replete with implications for the evolution and organization of political life.-Charles Lindholm

W HAT IS THE

PLACE OF SUBETHNIC IDENTITIES IN MODERN

politics? How do lower-aggregate affiliations-to tribe, clan, village, or locale-affect the mechanisms by which the contemporary state exercises power?1 How does this exercise of power in turn shape expressions of these local identities? We rarely ask such questions, but perhaps we should. Subethnic politics occurs broadly across space and time, and it has serious consequences in a variety of contexts. I cover some of these consequences in greater detail below; for now, the disintegration of the Somali state into kin-based units in 1990 is reminder enough of the importance of subethnic ties. In this chapter, I first illustrate how the problem of kinship and power lies at the interstices of academic disciplines and therefore largely goes unaddressed. I then elaborate the significance ofthe problem. Finally, I develop the book's argument (summarized in the introduction), situating it vis-a.-vis alternative approaches and laying the groundwork for the empirical chapters that follow.

THEORIZING AT THE DISCIPLINARY MARGINS

Clan politics lies at the interstices of disciplines, occupying a conceptual blind spot. Leaving lower-aggregate group identities for anthropologists to study, political scientists perhaps assume that nothing so 3

4

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microlevel could have an important effect on political life. I question this assumption. If it results from a division of labor forged for professional convenience, it is one that has ontological consequences. By leaving explicit conceptualization of these identities to other disciplines, political science may misread their literatures and misunderstand the role these group solidarities play in the contemporary world. The picture of identity politics that prevails among political scientists is this: the forces of modernization (urbanization, industrialization, mass literacy, and education) dissolve group boundaries. Studies of nationalism in particular imply that subnational divisions (ethnic groups or kinship-based clans) progressively fade from social and political importance. When outcomes deviate from this core expectationthat is, when subnational identities remain important-this is usually explained to be a result of incomplete homogenizing pressures. The logic is that institutions or processes that generally dissolve loweraggregate divisions may fail to do so in particular instances, for idiosyncratic reasons. 2 While the implied teleology of progressive homogenization of populations has come under fire,3 the assumption that identity divisions generally fade away has received new life with discussions of the cultural homogenization expected to accompany globalization. Rooted in once fashionable theories of modernization, this perspective might be called "identity modernization." The core idea is that powerfully transformative pressures are brought to bear on societies that fundamentally alter social structures and the bases for group affiliations. Because the moral logic at play is viewed as essentially different for the state and for subethnic attachments, the latter succumbs to the former. Alternatively, subethnic divisions are seen to reside beyond the reach of the state apparatus - in what Moroccan authorities called the "zone of dissidence," over which the state has little control, as distinct from a "zone of control," in which the state was able to tax and conscript. 4 In this line of thinking, either these affiliations gradually disappear as state apparatuses consolidate, or they remain outside the purview of the state. From the perspective of identity modernization, the persistence of subethnic divisions produces a theoretical tension. Gellner sets out the puzzle in the strongest terms, suggesting that the state function-

Kinship and Modernity

5

ally requires the elimination oflower-aggregate cultural and political attachments. He argues that with the creation of the modern state, [c ]ulture is no longer merely the adornment, confirmation and legitimation of a social order which was also sustained by harsher and coercive constraints; culture is now the necessary shared medium, the life-blood or perhaps rather the minimal shared atmosphere, within which alone the members of the society can breathe and survive and produce. For a given society, it must be one in which they can all breathe and speak and produce; so it must be the same culture. Moreover, it must now be a great or high (literate, training-sustained) culture, and it can longer be a diversified, locality-tied, illiterate little culture or tradition. 5

For the Gellnerian perspective, where the modern nation-state and Weberian rationality eventually triumph, lower-level affiliations are eclipsed as obsolescent. In his work on the Middle East, Gellner understands tribes as separate from the state apparatus; evidence of their existence is considered tantamount to state ineffectiveness. Historical attempts to create mercenary (mamluk) armies in ~he Middle East, he explains, met with failure due to the "temptations of honor, kinship, and wealth."6 Education plays a central role in homogenizing previously differentiated cultures, leaving little room for alternatives: "Time was when education was a cottage industry, when men could be made by a village or clan. That time has now gone, and gone forever. ... Exo-socialization, the production and reproduction of men outside the local intimate unit ... is unavoidable. That is what nationalism is about, and why we live in an age of nationalism."7 Other central figures in modernization theory likewise leave little space for subnational and subethnic identity politics. Deutsch, for example, argues that a "nationality" emerges as a functional requirement of the modern state: since statehood required social integration and assimilation to be effective, communication became increasingly effective and dense among its networked individuals. 8 This may be a useful heuristic, but it down plays the possibility that communicative networks can be concentrated in or be largely coterminous with subgroups, and thus may not play the integrative function that he envisions.

6

We know that nations are, in Anderson's felicitous phrase, "imagined communities" and that these communities are no less powerful for being the product of the imaginative act. But the question remains: why have the factors that Anderson isolates-print-capitalism, the census, the museum, and the map-not had the same transformative value in later nationalist movements that they appear to have had in European cases? Why do communities continue to be "imagined" on levels other than the national one, and why does the national one not supplant lower-level affiliations? In short, there is good reason to examine what Anderson relegates to parentheses: "In fact, all communities larger than primordial villages offace-to-face contact (and perhaps even these) are imagined."9 Modernization theory is not in intellectual fashion the way it once was, but its assumptions linger.lo They find an unusual source of ongoing support: the structural-functional paradigm of early cultural anthropology. The tendency within this paradigm was to treat locale and tribe as closed systems, that is, as constellations of institutions and practices that perpetuated themselves to meet certain "needs" -usually understood as rooted in environmental conditions. This approach undertheorized links to forces and actors external to the locale and its environment. ll When such links were considered, they were often depicted as deviations from a "normal," a mode of existence centrally related to an observed, or imagined, "ethnographic present."l2 For example, a focus on the effects of colonial rule encouraged scholars to locate a precolonial social and cultural baseline, from which all deviations emerged as a result of influences defined a priori as alien. By underestimating the vibrancy of external links, these approaches overestimated the transformative properties of state-led modernization projects. The more the realm of the "traditional" appeared to be discrete and closed, the greater the contrast with the "modern" appeared. The result was a stark traditional-modern dichotomy that presented the possible trajectories for local groups as dichotomous: either they would accept, succumb, or assimilate to the overwhelming pressures of state-driven modernization, or they would resist the same, to some uncertain fate. Either such identities were smothered by the state, or they remained outside its reach. The possibility of syncretic outcomes was downplayed. It is becoming increasingly clear -contra the assumptions of modernization perspectives-that low-aggregate identities such as clans

Kinship and Modernity

7

remain very much a part of the modem political condition. These are affiliations that are neither slated for social oblivion nor doomed to political insignificance. Moreover, we should not understand the ongoing political expression of subethnicity in the modem period as evidence of failed or incomplete modernization. This is one theoretical possibility, but the Kazakhstan case points to an alternative: that the specific mechanisms of modernization may themselves preserve and even strengthen-rather than render obsolescent-these lower-aggregate attachments. This possibility becomes apparent if we retain a broad definition of modernization as "the growth and diffusion of a set of institutions rooted in the transformation of the economy by means of technology."13 One final perspective on the problem should be addressed. If there is a tension between usual approaches to identity and the ongoing significance of clan politics, perhaps this results innocently from a difference of focus. Maybe students of nationalism simply train their lenses on the coincidence (or lack thereof) of cultural and political boundaries, while students of clan relations examine lower-aggregate divisions and the dynamic they produce. But a difference of focus is only a part of the story. Clan politics is typically a quieter, and less visible, politics than the noisy contention of nationalist groups.14 Walker Connor once commented, "There is an understandable propensity ... to perceive the struggle in terms of its more readily discernable features."15 We should remember that the most visible divisions and the most politically important ones might not be one and the same. THE PROBLEM

Subethnic clan politics deserves attention because it poses critical challenges to nation-building efforts, state-building programs, and battles over the nature of legitimate authority. In sometimes vivid form, its significance plays itself out across the Middle East, East and North Africa, Southeast Asia, and the former USSR. Particularly evident with decolonization, the questions of how to build viable state institutions and how to secure popular allegiance to new administrative apparatuses preoccupy political actors. These challenges lie at the center of politics through much of the world. Consider nation-building processes, in which elites seek to foster allegiance to a higher-aggregate community (i.e., a community that

8

goes beyond face-to-face interaction). In their efforts, elites typically confront culturally plural societies whose loyalties are directed not toward the state and its agents, but rather toward the locale and local authorities. In such circumstances, local populations adhere to local customs, participate in and support local (and often informal) institutions, and behave with purposes that are typically local in scope. Such populations invoke kinship and kinlike affiliations that are built on profound and often exclusive group solidarities based on trust/ 6 they hold all extralocal symbols, constructs, or authorities not related by blood to be inherently suspect. If populations feel bound to the ties of place or of tight-knit locale, reconciliation between local and national allegiances becomes difficult. This is especially true if a local group views "nation-building" efforts as merely the smoke screen behind which cliques from other local groups seek to impose an alien, illegitimate, or unrepresentative order. The contests are seldom zero-sum; the successful construction of national identity does not require a concomitant destruction oflocal attachments. Nonetheless, reconciliation remains a formidable challenge. Similar challenges present themselves with state-building efforts. How can territory-wide institutions perform well iflocal practices and kin-based behaviors represent an alternative institutional order to that which the state seeks to create? Clans and other "clublike affiliations" have a profound effect because they provide advantages to members.17 Clan organizations generate clear rules by which members interact, thus lowering transaction costs for the in-group. Nonmembers, who may not know the "rules of the game," confront higher transaction costs for their ignorance. What is a boon to individual members is a burden to the larger social unit. Thus, as a whole, society experiences a proliferation of nonproductive activities, such as rent seeking. Even in some advanced industrial contexts, the performance oHormal, stateintroduced institutions suffers in those areas where kinship networks remain vibrant. 1s In this sense, there is a trade-off between what the ideal-type state prizes (public goods-provision, anonymous transactions, technical expertise, formal equality) and what subethnic groups seek to preserve (connections to kin or locale). The Weberian legal-rational state that elites claim to want to create excels at providing public goods; loweraggregate networks provide goods to more limited populations. This

Kinship and Modernity

9

may also complicate attempts to create markets and democratic institutions. Profound interpersonal trust, on the one hand, and anonymous transactions, on the other, are competing principles in the functioning of markets. 19 Likewise, if political parties have a subethnic basis, this represents an alternative to a system of mass, interest-based parties. In the extreme, if efforts at nation- and state-building fail, subethnic divisions can become part and parcel of violent conflict and the dialectic of state collapse. Thankfully, such an outcome is a rarity, but when it does occur, kin ties may be implicated. Although not the cause of state breakdown, strongly drawn blood relationships can make conflict more intractable once it has begun. Descent ideologies are easily mobilized by political actors with narrow goals and agendas, as blood ties are widely understood as immutable;20 calls to arms based on kinship meet with profound effect. Moreover, where kin lines are well defined, the memory of acts committed by ancestors quickly becomes a personal matter. Tragically, while many of those societies that traditionally had strongly drawn kin divisions also enjoyed informal institutions that successfully mediated conflicts, in the modern context these institutions may have been weakened or elirninated. 21 State breakdown in places like Somalia, as well as Lebanon, therefore, has protracted and especially deleterious consequences. 22 The problem of clans and states usually falls short of state collapse. In some cases, subethnic ties appear to playa positive role. Laitin, for example, has demonstrated that attachment to ancestral town crosscuts religious divisions within Nigeria, thus tempering religious tensions. In a similar vein, Collins has shown that clan divisions playa stabilizing role in a Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, where conflict along ethnic lines might otherwise have been expected. These lines of research are encouraging; clearly, zero-sum thinking on the problem of clans and states obscures the possibilities for their reconciliation. 23 Far more often, however, subethnic divisions leave their mark. At minimum, they help to define the modus operandi of the state's exercise of power. For example, ruling parties may follow the outlines of kinship divisions, as has the Baath Party in lraq.24 Outside of the formal institutional architecture of the state, informal politics often turn on these divisions. In Morocco, subethnic networks help to distribute political and social goods, generating something close to a stable equilibrium by which the state conducts its affairs. 25

10

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All of these challenges to nationhood and statehood erupt from the collision of alternative conceptions oflegitimacy. Rather than accommodate those local institutions, identities, and modes of behavior that enjoy broad societal resonance, state elites typically view them as threatening. The logic is that subethnicity is built on an edifice that is by its nature local and not amenable to appropriation by nationalstate structures. State elites thus turn the problem oflegitimizing their own authority into a problem of delegitimizing long-standing, societywide practices. Thus, in Somalia, Siad Barre organized state-led campaigns against "tribal" identity and the accouterments of tribal culture. 26 Much rarer are those cases, such as Jordan, in which state elites seek to absorb and appropriate similar subethnic identities and ideologies to legitimize their rule. 27 Weber's problematique captures much of the significance of clans. Following Weber, particularistic (rather than national) identities, institutions, and sources oflegitimacy create a traditional dynamic that foils attempts to create an effective, modern bureaucracy. He considered a state bureaucracy successful to the extent that individual bureaucrats did not privatize the physical assets of administration or the services it provided. 28 Properly, a bureaucrat would not even claim ownership over his or her own labor. 29 The rules that governed bureaucracies were to be hierarchical, applied impersonally, and thereby capable of creating a "goal-rational" apparatus (i.e., one that was effective in pursuing a particular end); at least in theory, the provision of public goods could be that particular goaPO By contrast, premodern societies were dominated by individuals with nonrational orientations (traditional, charismatic, or affective, in Weber's language)-orientations that undermined attempts to create such an apparatus. While most recognize, as Weber did, that bureaucracy is no panacea, but instead produces a potential "iron cage" that undermines human freedom, the danger for post-Soviet states was not that they possessed too much ideal-typical bureaucracy but rather too little. As the sanguine expectations of earlY-1990s scholars of democratic and market "transitions" came to seem more blithely hopeful than realistic, both observers of the ex-USSR and practitioners working in the region shifted their perspective. By the first years of the twenty-first century, they seized Weberian language about the need for international actors to foster the "rule of law" in the region - efforts that achieved few results for a variety of reasons}!

Kinship and Modernity

11

From the Weberian perspective, cultural ties are generally expected to thwart the efforts of would-be state builders. Affective bonds generate "social closure" that undermines the drive to create efficient practice based on specialized labor and impersonal relationships. Cultural groups foster particularistic identities that work to generate private goods. If this is true of any cultural connection, clans are ties of even more limited scope, typically incorporating fewer individuals than do their higher-aggregate counterparts (such as ethnic groups). For a Weberian, clans epitomize the subversiveness of traditional society in the face of attempts to construct modern institutions. If ethnicity and Weberian states are in tension, clans and states generate even greater contradictions. But if Weber expertly outlines the challenges that kinship-rich societies present, he does so without providing guidance for a solution. Instead, he proposes an evolutionary "march of bureaucracy," implying that there is nothing distinctive about such societies; they are merely understood to be "earlier" in their historical developmentY Although a strong critic of the teleology inherent in Karl Marx's work, Weber nonetheless posits a teleology of his own in suggesting that kinship divisions would eventually lose their utility. This is not a theoretical impossibility, but the perspective does require our asking why such an outcome has not yet materialized.

PRIMORDIALISM: A FIRST CUT

If modernization-based approaches have little to say about subethnic clan politics, what analytic leverage does the rest of the identity politics literature offer for a study of subethnic politics? I first examine how well primordialism addresses the issue.33 To students of identity politics, the suggestion that primordialism offers analytic leverage arouses immediate suspicion. It has become a mantra in the literature to confirm that group identities are constructed, not biologically or culturally primordial. We have learned that the collectivities involved in political competition are not given and unchanging, but rather are influenced by a potent array of political and social forces.3 4 Among its other benefits, this theoretical shift keeps in check the ever-present analytical temptation to reify difference and create static, categorical cultural amalgams with the appearance of mutual exclusivity.3 5 Constructivist approaches highlight

12

how the contours and content of group ness change over time - an issue that otherwise remains in shadow. But can constructivism explain continuity as well as change? Even if the nature of identities is continually contested, and even if their dynamic is subject to secular pressures and sudden shocks, groups are nonetheless not infinitely changeable. We need an approach that can provide insight into the staying power that identity categories, once created, potentially enjoy. In spite of a torrent of criticism, primordialism provides a first-cut explanation. Unlike national identities, clans seem not to require common abstractions to link the members of a national group; rather, they appear based in iterated, day-to-day social interaction based in deepseated feelings of trust and loyalty.36 Accordingly, the primordialist's explanation might be very simple: profound emotional attachment prevents the members of a group from challenging the assumption of groupness. Clan cleavages persist because they are the emotional building blocks of identity. As Collins suggests, trust lies at the heart of this attachment: "Once trust is established, kinship is an organizing device for stabilizing social ties across time and space. A pattern of frequent interaction-dense interaction-over time leads to the social embeddedness of kinship and clan relations."37 Such an approach would explain the upsurge in clan politics as Soviet power receded in Central Asia. As a coercive regime receded, powerfully emotive clan relationships naturally reemerged. Indeed, this should be an easy case for primordial ism to make. After all, if the "constructedness" of national and ethnic attachments is widely recognized, kin-based divisions are believed to be something more elemental. So, the argument would go, in spite of the policies of the twentieth century's most coercive regime, these seemingly rocksolid, essential building blocks of identity survived. A comparative perspective points up the limits of primordial ism's explanatory power. Scotland - to take one example - had a strong clan social organization from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. Extended families advanced chiefs who were seen as the authoritative representatives of common ancestors. These clans were engaged in constant rivalries, such that Scottish clan warfare achieved legendary status. Eventually, however, the clan system went into demise. After the Jacobite Uprising in 1745, Charles Edward Stewart favored certain chiefs over others, granting them titles and the opportunity to

Kinship and Modernity increase their personal land ownership and wealth, rather than that of the clan. The expanding state gradually supplanted clan authority. If clan ties are primordial, why do they fuel resurgence in some cases and not in others? Since a focus on the assumed emotional "stickiness" of identity divisions cannot account for this variation, we are left wanting an approach that can reconcile continuity and change in clan relations. Moreover, we are left wanting a perspective that can identify causal mechanisms that propel continuity (or disruptions) in clan relations. To look for causal mechanisms is to seek to avoid primordialism's core tautology: that collective identities persist because they are persistent. MECHANISMS OF IDENTITY REPRODUCTION

On the surface, constructivism appears to fare no better. Well attuned to change and fluidity in identity relations, it has less to say about the conditions under which collective identities persist over time. Yet, a modified constructivism could say much on this count. If an identity persists, we should be able to locate a mechanism that propels this development. What Thelen suggests for institutions might be argued for group identity as well: "Institutions rest on a set of ideational and material foundations that, if shaken, open possibilities for change."38 If we can identify the mechanisms ofidentity reproduction, we gain exceptional purchase on both identity persistence and identity construction. If, in turn, we have a better sense of continuity and change, we better specify group identity as a variable in ways that make social-scientific sense. This is a different way to think about identity relations. It suggests that if groups survive, this is not the product of emotional "stickiness" that is understood to be the glue of group membership. If, by contrast, groups go into demise, this is not the outcome of processes (such as those associated with modernization) that inexorably dissolve group boundaries. Emotional stickiness and the transformation from traditional to modern may playa role in the fate of identity cleavages, but I argue that whether clan divisions persist or not hinges on identifiable mechanisms of identity reproduction. The mechanisms that lurk behind identity dynamics involve causal chains that can be linked to specific temporal and spatial contexts and contingencies. The particular mechanism that I highlight has much

to do with the nature of the Soviet state, but these mechanisms vary widely in their form and scope. Some are intimately tied to the state; in other contexts, they may not be. As Thelen suggests with regard to institutions, "different institutions rest on different foundations, and so the processes that are likely to disrupt them will also be different, though predictable."39 When the mechanism that sustains identity relations encounters an exogenous shock, identity relations shift and recombine. These newly recombined forms, in turn, may be sustained by new mechanisms. The demise of identity divisions occurs when the mechanisms that sustain particular group affiliations are undermined and no alternative emerges to replace them. When an alternative mechanism does emerge, it may be substantially different from what preceded it and therefore leave its imprint on the identity dynamic. There need not be a conscious intention to fuel identity relationships for such mechanisms to be operative. Quite to the contrary, the Kazakhstan case shows that the intention to eradicate clan identities can translate into the practice of sustaining them. Different mechanisms that underlie identity relations produce different types of politics. This makes intuitive sense: the foundations of group relations lend structure to identity politics. We therefore need to ask two questions of any given group solidarity. First, what makes this identity category resonant? To put it differently, what mechanism contributes to its ongoing appeal? Second, how does what makes this identity category resonant in turn affect its relationship to power? In other words, how does identity politics emerge from the forces that propel identity relations? I suggest that a focus on the mechanisms of identity reproduction gives us leverage on both questions.

CLANS AND THE STATE IN KAZAKHSTAN

The Soviet drive to modernize a traditional landscape in fact had the opposite effect of increasing the import of kinship by tapping its most important inherent quality: its concealable nature. This causal link between the Soviet regime and clan-identity persistence is not what primordialists would generally expect. Soviet authorities set out to "modernize" Central Asia, loudly trumpeting their campaigns for cultural transformation. Given the often brutal nature of these efforts, a primordialist might expect that the persist-

Kinship and Modernity ence of clan divisions occurred in spite of the state effort. To address Kazakhstan, she would be forced to suggest that clan survival had almost nothing to do with one of the most coercive regimes in modern history. For a primordialist, the Soviet state and its transformative capacity would seem irrelevant. It is difficult, however, to ignore the degree to which Kazakhstan was transformed under Soviet rule. It moved from an economy dominated by nomadic pastoralism to one based on large-scale mechanized agriculture and extractive industry. Even rural residents encountered dramatic pressures from Soviet modernization and the infrastructure it provided. Bureaucratization, electrification, the mechanization of agriculture and animal husbandry, near-universal literacy and education, as well as the palpable presence of state and Communist Party agents all contributed to a diminished rural-urban divide. The regime spared little brutality to make such transformations possible, but it ultimately did not eradicate clan divisions in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Thus, while some scholars offer a picture of Central Asia as on the whole untransformed by Soviet rule, this is misleading if we include Kazakhstan in the picture. 40 To the extent that the Soviet state enjoyed uncontested power, the argument is state-centric. Moscow was unusual in this effort, but it was hardly unique in driving the mechanisms of identity reproduction. The state is the engine behind both the persistence and particular manifestations of identity politics. Examining the top-down impact of state-generated political processes seems especially warranted for the study of the former socialist bloc, with its hypertrophic coercive and bureaucratic structures and unusual degree of attempted control over civil society. But in orienting this study to the state, I seek to go beyond the intentions of state actors to consider the realities of state action. Rationalchoice institutionalism tells us that when the state creates institutions for particular purposes (e.g., social transformations, economic equalization, administration of populations), it generates a series of incentives that affect the behavior of participants.41 Following this logic, elites who seek to initiate behavioral transformations are wise to "get the incentives right." Without denying the central fact that institutions affect behavior, I wish to make the picture a bit more complicated. First, institutions often create incentives other than those intended by actors. Second, what the state creates in one policy area may have profoundly

16

unintended consequences in another area. Unintended consequences flow across policy areas and are the hallmark of state action. But, one might object, since the Soviet state ultimately proved fragile, why choose a state-centered approach? The Soviet cultural engineering project failed to produce the intended outcomes; a huge gap separated the actual accomplishments of the project from its aims. In this sense, the Soviet experience was one among many failures of high modernism to "improve the human condition."42 But failures, too, have profoundly transformative value. A runner who stops three miles before the marathon's finish line has failed to complete the race. From a failure of this sort, can we concl ude that the runner's grueling and timeconsuming training regime had no significant effect on her physical well-being? In the Soviet case, the failure of state-led cultural engineering should not imply that cultural and political identities were untransformed by state practices. The resulting transformations simply confounded the expectations of project designers. State-centrism is relatively common among specialists on this region, but the approach I take is at some odds with usual treatments. Studies on the state's role in identity politics show how Soviet institutions served to construct ethnonationalist identities. 43 Where ethnic divisions predated Soviet rule, Soviet institutions lent them additional salience; where ethnic divisions were absent before state socialism, Soviet institutions served to create them. 44 This occurred because an ethnic logic pervaded Soviet life. Passports and other state documentation emphasized ethnic background; political appointments and professional advancement often centered on ethnic criteria; ethnically defined working classes were created; ethnic languages received state support; ethnically defined elites enjoyed distinctive privileges from Moscow; and, an ethnoterritorial principle defined the federal administrative structure. These practices etched ethnicity deeply onto the plate of Soviet and post-Soviet politics, but state influence on identity politics should not be reduced to promoting ethnicity. If we expand our understanding of what states do (deliberately or not), we develop a fuller appreciation of their role in social and cultural transformation.

Shortage Economy and Other Mechanisms The Soviet modernization effort vis-a-vis clan relations was multifaceted. On the one hand, it replaced traditional authority with Soviet

Kinship and Modernity power and created on a traditional landscape a more complex society. Key (though less obvious) processes moved in the opposite direction, however, promoting the use of clan divisions. This second face of the modernization project began with a political economy of shortage. 45 Shortages of goods, services, and access to power that were endemic to the state socialist economy encouraged access networks to proliferate. Across the southern-tier regions, these access networks often followed kinship lines. By constraining access to political and economic goods (political power, industrial inputs, consumer wares), the command system produced opportunities for the proliferation of access networks. Across the southern tier of the USSR, ordinary people mobilized preexisting cultural links along subethnic lines as a means of gaining access to such goods. Clan networks were not the only kind of network that could provide such access, but they did have certain advantages. Specifically, subethnicitywas not rooted in visible markers (as ethnic divisions tend to be) but rather in an exchange of genealogical information that defines identity and difference. Clan background could thus be concealed from the agents of Soviet surveillance who prosecuted network behavior as illegal. Subethnic networks came to occupy illicit and private social niches because the state edged them from public life while promoting their utility as an underground phenomenon. At the same time, the Soviet cultural engineering project viewed clan attachments as "backward" and therefore anathema to the efforts at "socialist construction." State campaigns targeted clan divisions not only to eliminate them from people's behavior, but also to eradicate them discursively from people's consciousness. By singling out subethnic divisions for removal, Soviet propaganda moved these divisions from legitimate public space. They were pushed underground and made private. Whereas before the Soviet period, clan identity and difference were freely established through relatively unencumbered flows of genealogical information, in the Soviet period most Kazakhs kept their background private-at least from state agents. By edging these categories from the public sphere but simultaneously providing opportunities for their reproduction, Soviet state action helped to re-create clan identities over time. Thus, the political and social salience of clan divisions in the post-Soviet period is a consequence of this mechanism that reproduced clans as access networks. If this shortage economy helped to promote clan identity relations,

Tke Rer-roJ....dio>1- of cl.c...>ti what earlier mechanism had it replaced? In the pre-Soviet period, the Kazakh steppe lacked state structures, notwithstanding a creeping Russian colonization of the region before Soviet rule. The harsh ecology of the steppe environment placed limits on capital accumulation (which was typical of nomadic and seminomadic contexts), thus stalling one of the prime engines of social stratification and change. Nomadic pastoralism and the clan system were well suited to this severe environment, as it provided the glue of diffuse authority in the absence of a central state apparatus. 46 In the early Soviet period, Moscow did not deal a fundamental blow to the economy of nomadic pastoralism that lay at the root of the clan system. Rather, it relied on local authority structures to consolidate its rule in the Central Asian periphery. With forced collectivization and sedentarization of the early 1930S, the mechanism that had previously propelled clan identities was fundamentally undermined. A resource scarcity that played an important role even under Stalin became systemic after his death. With Brezhnev's trust-in-cadres policy that entrenched republican elites, the previous systemic dynamism predicated in great measure on Stalin's ever-changing preferences vanished; "stagnation" set in, in which patronage networks crystallized and the rules of social and political life became more predictable. Everyday affairs centered on questions of goods procurement, and access networks became increasingly important, useful, and reliable for ordinary people and elites alike. In the Soviet south, these networks often followed blood lines. In the 1990S, the command nature of the political economy was scrapped, but the essential problem remained the same, notwithstanding President Nazarbaev's portrayals of Kazakhstan as a developmental state that would exploit its natural resources and become the next Kuwait or Saudi Arabia. A sharp economic decline produced acute scarcity that intensified resource-competition. With the real GDP declining precipitously through the mid-1990s, politics in Central Asia was based on distribution of scarce goods. The utility of subethnic access networks did not evaporate with the Soviet collapse.

An Imprint on Clan Politics As a mechanism of reproduction, this shortage economy was responsible not only for promoting subethnic clan divisions; it was also responsible for the particular forms in which they were reproduced. It left a

Kinship and Modernity distinctive imprint on the identity dynamic. By the end of Soviet rule, clan divisions were no longer the paramount wellsprings of social, cultural, and political identity that they had been in the nineteenth century. The Soviet shortage economy had made their function more specific: they were brought closer to essentially political questions of goods distribution. Clans emerged into the post-Soviet period as access networks to goods in short supply. These access networks jockeyed for control over increasingly lucrative resources in a process that might be called "clan conflict." A second type of subethnic politics occurred on the discursive plane. The clan-based access networks were not merely private; they were also contested. As chapter 2 introduces, social discourse-rather than outwardly visible markers of difference-established the contours of clan identity and difference before Soviet rule. Soviet modernization transformed these identities, but it did not change their centrally discursive nature. Driven from legitimate public space by an ongoing stigma, subethnic identities remained largely in the private realm. The flow of genealogical information that once established identity was no longer free and open. In the modern context, subethnic relations became opaque, opening a wide berth for imagination in their social construction and in the political contests that surrounded them. Myriad political actors exploited this opacity to their own ends, challenging given categories, suggesting new ones, infusing old ones with new meaning, and engaging in battles over the legitimacy of power holders. This is what a number of scholars mean when they discuss "metaconflict" over identity relations; conflict over the nature of the identitybased conflict is a contest over the shape and nature of the identities that animate politics. 47 Who the actors are, where their interests lie, and what might represent just solutions to political problems are not exogenously given (except in the minds of remote analysts) but rather endogenously produced, transformed, and contested by iterations of conflict. Identity politics is not simply driven by group solidarities that can be understood as static, but rather invariably include contests about the groups themselves. The assertion and denial of groupness becomes a central tool of the trade. For example, when a state conducts a census in some senses it records existing identity divisions, but in a more central way it shapes the politics of cultural identities. A census is a political, as much as a demographic, issue. And if such metaconflict

20

is present in all identity politics, it is present all the more for clans. Their legitimacy called into question by the very nature of modernity, subethnic divisions give life to a politics that necessarily involves this discursive, metaconflictual moment. I do not intend to focus exclusively on the discourse, ideas, and intellectuals involved in identity politics. As Stevens observes, "To hear a practice called discursive may prompt the inference that it follows from the merely whimsical, playful qualities of language, that who one is might be a matter of ' mere words,' and not the necessary pulls oflife and death many find in their forms ofbeing."48 Not all politics recommends a focus on discourse. For some politics, however, the discursive element is too central to be ignored, even in the interest of analytic parsimony. Clan politics occupies a conceptual blind spot, since it occurs at the juncture of disciplines. While less visible than above-ground forms of identity politics (such as ethnicity- or religion-based contests), it drives important developments in a broad array of contexts. In particular, it generates challenges to nation- and state-building efforts, since clans often bring the pull oflocality and the proposition of alternative institutional orders to the political game. Moreover, the usual perspectives fail us on the subject. The identity-modernization approach cannot account for persistent clan politics. Primordialist approaches can account for persistence, but they say little about the causal process by which this persistence occurs. Taking a page from historical institutionalism, I propose that a stronger theory of identity politics identifies the mechanisms by which identities are reproduced. To do so is to suggest a way to improve radically our conceptual purchase both on clan politics and on identity politics more generally.

N oltL"-L, Diffoe A"-tko rit3-' "-d 5 o vietiz,"-tLo "'The assumption of inertia, that cultural and social continuity do not require explanation, obliterates the fact that both have to be recreated anew in each generation, often with great pain and suffering. - Barrington Moore

MODERN HISTORY IS A STORY OF STATE EXPANSION - EXPANSION

not into empty space but over inhabited territory. The rapid conquest by tsarist Russia into Central Asia has many parallels-notably in the feverish scramble for African colonies- but even in Africa, rare is the case in which a stateless population so radically and so quickly succumbed to alien state institutions. In this sense, Kazakhstan is terra firma for examining the influence of states on indigenous identity patterns. Apart from the institutions of Russian colonial expansion, the steppe nomads had minimal exposure to the apparatuses of state before the consolidation of Soviet rule. This affords an unusual opportunity to trace how states produce identity politics. 1 To understand the collision of clan and Soviet authority patterns, we require a step backward. Conceptually, we must first cover terminological issues. Chronologically, we need clarity on what lay at the heart of the traditional, pre-Soviet clan dynamic. As I will show, nomadic pastoralism generated an entire social system built on kinship ties. Readers who skim this chapter will miss the presentation of key evidence, but the logic of the book's argument should not suffer.

21

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CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND Some definitional clarity makes analysis possible. As Hobbes wrote, "A man that seeketh precise truth had need to remember what every name he uses stand for, and to place it accordingly, or else he will find himself entangled in words, as a bird in lime twigs, the more he struggles the more belimed."2 To avoid such a messy fate, I consider the use of three key terms: identity, ethnicity, and clan.

Identity "Identity" is a term whose utility as empirical descriptor and analytic category may be uneven. The postrnodern turn in the social sciences in the 1980s and 1990S harkened to the social psychology of Mead and the strategic interactionist sociology of Coffman in contending that any given person has multiple, overlapping relational identities, the expression of which is situation-dependent.3 Together with the post-Cold War ascendance ofliberal democratic norms, these insights powerfully suggested the individual as the unit of analysis for research in identity politics. This was useful as a corrective to previous primordialist theorizing, but it suggested an oversight: identity involves more than the irreducible and elusive individual singularity suggested in both postmodernism and liberal democratic theory. Identity entails a sameness that links individuals in a group. The recognition that groups are unstable, contested, and overlapping should not obscure the fact that identity is a social phenomenon that on some level must be described in Durkheimian terms.4 In the extreme, a postmodern lens that focuses attention on various, ever-changing multiple identities loses sight of the coercive power of groups by depicting them as mere paper tigers. Identity is at root about group behavior and group selfunderstandings. By the same token, there is an opposite pitfall in studies of identity: the assumption that group identities remain discrete and constant. Invoking the need for parsimony, some analysts reify difference and create static, categorical cultural amalgams with the appearance of mutual exclusivity. In extreme form, this practice is clear in the "Clash of Civilizations" argument, wherein Huntington essentializes and homogenizes world" civilizations" and expects that conflict will result from these divisions.5 To be sure, cultural differences are important

Nomads, Diffuse Authority, and Sovietization

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for politics, but the political significance of difference does not inhere in the difference itself.6 Rather, it is continually constructed through social interaction and can therefore take on a variety of forms. Any scholarship that imbues entire cultural groups with unity and agency can fall prey to this practice. Avoiding the reification of group boundaries, on the one hand, and recognizing social behaviors, on the other, is an ever-present challenge for identity research. With this in mind, I understand identity as a minimal set of characteristics that an individual is recognized to share with others in a group.

Ethnicity "Ethnicity" is a term that students of the former USSR rapidly embraced to describe the primary cultural categories that appeared in Soviet censuses. There is little conceptual difference between what Sovietologists had referred to as "nationalities" and what scholars of other world regions referred to as "ethnicities," but the shift in vocabulary to the latter signaled an ambition among specialists on post-Soviet identity politics to engage cross-case comparisons. It is worth asking what we mean by the term. Ethnicity is generally understood to encompass differences in language, dress, religion, customs, cuisine, family patterns, and other cultural diacritica. Many such factors operate in the setting of cultural boundaries. Conceptual messiness ensues, however, since some of these factors understood to define ethnic difference do not always do so. For example, religion is a marker of ethnic difference between Orthodox Russians and Muslim Chechens in the North Caucasus, but common religion unites Russians with many Ukrainians across ethnic lines, as Islam unites Chechens with Pashtuns and Uyghurs. To say that religious difference makes ethnic difference is wrong for these cases. Likewise, dress, custom, and cuisine have crossed cultural frontiers as long as there has been commercial exchange and migration. As markers of ethnic difference, these also are inadequate. Recognizing this, Barth suggests that ethnicity is less about the substance of cultural difference than about the maintenance of group boundaries itself.7 In former Soviet space, language is often identified as the fulcrum of identity relations. This may result from Stalin's well-known theoretical preoccupation with language issues, but for some scholars

Tke RerroJ....c!iOl1.. of cL...u this focus is practical. Discussing linguistic "tipping games" in four post-Soviet republics, Laitin suggests that language use has the social scientific advantage of being easily measured and monitored. By using language as a proxy for culture, he shows that a new identity emerged among diaspora Russians-an identity that distinguishes them from homeland Russians, as well as from the non-Russian titular population. 8 But, ofwhat is language an indicator? Whether this language base can be considered "ethnic" remains unclear even at the conclusion of a well-executed, empirically grounded study. Indeed, Serbs and Croats are united in a common language, notwithstanding the feeling of ethnic difference that became palpable in the late 1980s. The question whether or not diaspora identities are distinctive in an ethnic sense might be moot, but it touches on important conceptual issues. Is there a common substance to ethnic identity that distinguishes it from other identity formations? I follow Horowitz in suggesting that the defining aspect of ethnic affiliation is the myth of kinship, which contributes to the emotional charge that may accompany it. As Horowitz states, "To call ethnicity a kinlike affiliation is thus to call into play the panoply of rights and obligations, the unspoken understandings, and the mutual aspiration for well-being that are so characteristic of family life .... "9 Ethnicity is based on the conflation of kin and group, on the blurring oflines between identifiable kin and those assumed to be kin. The expression of this myth occurs in various ways: through language, dress, custom, cuisine, and/or religion. In other words, one is marked as kin-related if one demonstrates native fluency with the language, customs, and traditions of a given group. In this sense, the ethnic groups that inhabit Central Asian territory are Kazakhs, Russians, Ukrainians, Uyghurs, Tatars, Chechens, Greeks, Jews, and others. Some of them (Ukrainians, Russians, Uzbeks, Germans) are co-ethnics with the titular population in independent states; some (Tatars, Bashkirs, Chechens, Ingush) are co-ethnics with the titular population in neighboring substate administrative units; and some (Kurds, Uyghurs) are co-ethnics with populations of stateless minorities in other states. Twentieth-century Kazakhstan had such a culturally variegated landscape that ethnic Kazakhs became a minority in their "own" republic, beginning with forced collectiviza-

Nomads, Diffuse Authority, and Sovietization tion and famine in the late 1920S and early 1930S, to recover to demographic predominance only in the middle of the 1990S'

Subethnicity and Clan Divisions within ethnic groups are the primary focus of this book. To discuss such subethnic divisions is to choose among terms with normative baggage. Consider "tribe." Consensus over a definition is elusive even among anthropologists who confront the question frequently. Khoury and Kostiner contend that "a single, all-encompassing definition is virtually impossible to produce."l0 Inductively derived definitions are equally problematic, since "the ethnographer has often only managed to discern the existence of a tribe because he took it as axiomatic that this kind of cultural entity must exist."ll At the core of many understandings of tribe is its presumed conceptual opposition to modern institutions and identities. Many assume that tribes exist at an evolutionary stage before the emergence of modern national states. That is, tribes are ipso facto understood as primitive and backward. Christie echoes a common perspective when he contends, "[T]ribes are an early form of human organization, preceding that of nation or state. Tribes, presumably, can be found hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years before the latter forms of human organization appear."12 From the teleological perspective of presumptive developmental end points, to invoke the term "tribe" is to make a normative claim. To highlight the social significance of tribal divisions is all but to suggest the immanence of violence; to claim that "tribalism" animates politics is to imply that particularistic interests dominate a patrimonial polity. Thus, various forms of culture-based mobilization against an existing political order are often glossed as tribalism, even for societies lacking in actual tribes. 13 This is possible because of the negative connotations that the term tribe has come to carry. The term "clan" also carries unfortunate connotations. Before the Asian financial crisis in 1998, Westerners routinely referred to the Suharto "clan" in Indonesia to depict a plutocracy that enriched members of the former ruler's family. In the Russian context, klan became a rough equivalent of "faction," but with the added implication of exclusivity and the in-group trust assumed to accompany family rela-

26 tions.14 The underlying contention is that clans are entities that operate in ways fundamentally opposed to the principles of market democracies. This metaphorical usage of "clan" is not analytically helpful. While certain entities do acquire the properties described, they cannot be considered clans in Durkheim's sense of a politico-familial organization in which "affinities produced by sharing a blood kinship are mainly what keeps [members 1united."15 A definition of clan that emphasizes kinship may help us to recover its dynamic: clan divisions are those that exist within an ethnic group and in which demonstrable common kinship is understood to underlie membership. This understanding of clan begins with segmentary lineage theory.16 In segmentary societies, groups divide into smaller units and coalesce into larger ones, depending on the vagaries of climate and external military threat. Fissure and fusion occur along genealogical lines, with the smallest referent groups based most clearly upon common descent and larger ones based on the assumption of common descent. The members of such societies understand kinship as definitive, even if lineages can be fictitious. With clans, precise genealogical knowledge is understood to define membership. Of course, such knowledge can be created or manipulated by elites to justify their rule, just as it can be shaped or altered by secular influences. Nonetheless, descent-both fictive and realis the central operative principle of subethnic clan identity. The higher one moves in the model of segmentary lineage, the more an assumption of descent prevails over a need to actually demonstrate genealogical ties. At the level of the ethnic group, demonstrating actual descent is usually unnecessary; it is axiomatic. 17 Subethnic ties vary; they may be rooted in kin relations or in attachment to physical place. Kin ties are more portable than place-linked affinities. For the former type of tie, the physical distance between members that is generated with migrations may stretch the fabric of group relations, but not to the point of tearing; group identity does not require physical proximity. Thus, nomads, seminomads, and former nomads often use regular and ritualized oral communication to reiterate their genealogical bonds. By contrast, migration may be a more disruptive development for sedentary populations; group identity travels less well when it is rooted in place. Nonetheless, there are certain family resemblances between subethnic clan identities and subethnic attachments to place. In both

Nomads, Diffuse Authority, and Sovietization

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cases, the presumption is that they are subcategories within larger cultural units that receive positive political sanction. Both types of subethnicity are divisions that the modem state often renders illegitimate-a fact that centrally shapes their political dynamic. IDENTITY RELATIONS IN THE PRE-SOVIET STEPPE

This section elaborates a specific vocabulary for understanding the particular forms that subethnic clan and ethnic attachments took in the Kazakh steppe. 18 Before the changes that accompanied Russian colonization, five identity forms intersected in the steppe: local clan divisions, a limited class stratification, umbrella clans, ethnic difference, and a nomad-sedentary divide. I take each of them in turn. Underlying the logic of these identities is the mechanism that propelled them: the political economy of nomadic pastoralism. Amidst considerable variety and local complexity, the primary locus of identity before the onset of Russian colonial rule was local clans (ru), which resembled the constituent divisions in other nomadic societies. 19 As Evans-Pritchard illustrates for the Nuer of the AngloEgyptian Sudan, nomadic societies exhibit a segmentary lineage structure, in which members claim common descent (understood patrilineally, in the Kazakh case, as in most cases) from a single progenitor. 20 At the top of Kazakhs' genealogical tree sits Alash, the mythical founding father. Moving from the apex to the base, descent lines proliferated and became more complicated. At any given level in the descent structure, common agnatic kin could be invoked (or invented) to define the contours of a given segment. Segmentary divisions among precolonial nomads were flexible and scaled at multiple levels. Contingent on prevailing ecological conditions and constellations of external threats, groups would coalesce at different taxonomic levels at different times. Clans were a moving target. It was a rather complicated undertaking to establish a static picture of segmentary divisions, as Evans-Pritchard attempted. Aleksei Iraklievich Levshin, known for his seminal ethnography of the steppe nomads, encountered the same difficulties among Kazakhs. 21 Genealogical knowledge played a critical role among these nomads in determining the boundaries between segments. Unlike ethnic divisions, divisions between segments were defined not by a myth of kinship played out in the form of various cultural diacritica, but by

28 demonstrable knowledge of kin relations. Each nomad was expected to know his or her genealogical background (shezhire or zheti ata) at least to the seventh generation. This cutoff point was critical, since the society placed a proscription on endogamous marriage (within seven generations of common descent). Given regular migrations and mass illiteracy, this information was transmitted orally before the forced sedentarization and literacy campaigns of the Soviet period. After inquiring into the health of one another's livestock, nomads meeting in the steppe would typically ask, "What clan do you come from?" (Qai rudan keldingiz?), or more generically, "What people do you come from?" (Qai eldensiz?). The answer was couched by recounting ancestry; genealogical knowledge was thus reiterated with every new interaction and comprised a dense discursive exchange that helped to establish the widely recognized contours of clan at various levels. Thus, identity and difference were built upon a societal discourse that later would become fundamentally altered with the imposition of a Soviet state apparatus that edged it from legitimate public space. Since local clans were the primary site of group identity in the preRussian period, a number of related families would inhabit a single mobile encampment (aul).22 The steppe environment was the limiting factor on the size of the encampment. Great distances, a strongly continental climate (harsh winters and hot, dry summers), and scarce water and fodder restricted its extent. During the winter migration (qystau), pasturage was found near rivers, and encampments were more widely dispersed, thus reducing intergroup contact and increasing vulnerability to outside threat. During the summer migration (zhailau), several encampments would settle in closer proximity. This was a time for weddings, games, festivals, and competitions. 23 A symbiotic relationship emerged between the steppe environment and Kazakh social structure. Because of the harsh steppe ecology, Nurbulat Masanov argues, "nomadism is an ecologically determined way oflife:'24 Indeed, with the exception of areas along the Syr Darya River on the Mangyshlaq Peninsula and in the desert of central Kazakhstan, most of contemporary Kazakhstan is better suited for extensive pastoralism than for agriculture. Many areas can also support some degree of cultivation; in those areas, ecological severity influenced but did not determine whether pastoralism or agriculture prevailed in any given period; rather, specific social and political processes appear to

Nomads, Diffuse Authority, and Sovietization

29

have been critical. 25 Indeed, the Soviet period witnessed a massive changeover from pastoralism to cultivation, an undertaking that was difficult and ecologically suspect but possible. The Kazakh nomadic pastoralists had a loose, but still notable, attachment to territory. While we often expect agriculturalists to harbor strong ties to particular places, the same can occur among nomads, as climatic variability produced stable migrations along regular routes. Ishchenko and coauthors suggest, "For a nomadic household migrating many hundreds of kilometres from north to south, it is very important for there to be fodder crops along the entire migration route at a stage when they are nutritionally valuable. The arrival of a nomad in July in the North with his livestock still scraggy after winter is tantamount to jute [a huge loss of stock1because the grass begins to dry out at this period and is almost two times less nutritious than it is in May and June."26 The pastoralist valued his livestock first and foremost as property and thus branded them with group symbols or emblems (tamga). What is more surprising is that such emblems were also used to mark claims to pastureland. Ties to territory were clearly not irrelevant to nomads. 27 Authority was vested locally. Primary among authorities were elders (aqsaqaldar) and judges (biler). The elders were the male heads of each encampment who would select a judge to adjudicate disputes among a number of encampments. During times of peace, the elders would select a judge to govern relatively fewer encampments; during times of external threat, the elders would select a judge at a higher level to govern more encampments. Customary law (adat) provided guidance in the absence of an ultimate authority.28 So critical were many of these local authorities that clan divisions were often named in honor of the judges who governed them, especially if efforts at governance proved effective. 29 Until the twentieth century, socioeconomic stratification remained minimal. The steppe climate imposed important physical limitations on the accumulation of material wealth, and therefore on the emergence of stable class divisions. As one traveler to the region observed, "They experience very rapid rises and downturns in material wellbeing, depending almost exclusively on the weather and harvests .... A few extra degrees of cold that suddenly overtake winter pastures can in the shortest of time-spans turn a rich Kyrgyz [i.e., KazakhJ3° into a poor man."3 1

Tke Rer-..oJ.....d:wtt- of clc...u To the extent that there was much social stratification in the precolonial steppe, it favored the so-called whitebone (aq suiek) aristocrats, who formally were considered separate from the segmentary divisions of ordinary nomads. The whitebone was composed of two groups. First was a class of sultans (tore), who claimed descent from Genghis Khan himself and enjoyed some governing authority over the clan structure. Based largely on their charisma, these sultans chose khans who ruled the separate umbrella clans (discussed below), as well as the Kazakh Khanate, during those periods of unity among the three umbrella clans. The second part of the whitebone elite consisted of those who claimed special social standing on the basis of presumed descent from the Prophet Muhammad (hozha). These aristocrats enjoyed social status that set them apart from the so-called blackbone (qara suiek) commoners. But, given the limitations of the steppe environment, material plenty was elusive; aristocrats were thus distinguished largely by the legitimacy derived from privileged descentY The blackbone elite could claim no special standing, and the forces limiting its status were profound and pervaded Kazakh lore. One Kazakh proverb attests, "If a Sart [agriculturist] gets rich, he builds a home; if a Kazakh gets rich, he accumulates wives."33 Or, as one Kazakh song put it: "I was riding to the pitch when my horse-yoke broke / I tossed a coin, and it came up tails / Oh, ifI only had a lot of money / I would get myself four wives."34 Progeny was a preferred resource, since it produced a web of kin-related supporters who could consolidate authority and provide labor. Material wealth, by contrast, was ephemeral. While the local clan was the locus of identity before Russian colonization, the subethnic level of horde or umbrella clan (zhuz) also achieved considerable resonance.3 5 In the middle of the sixteenth century, the Kazakh Khanate disintegrated into three subunits led by three separate khans. This tripartite division is usually explained by the existence of three natural climatic zones that gradually forged stable migration routes for identifiable clusters of mobile encampments.36 A minority view holds that the umbrella clans began as military formations, presumably the institutional residue of Genghis Khan's Mongol army}7 In the fluid political and social context of the precolonial steppe,

Nomads, Diffuse Authority, and Sovietization

31

the umbrella clans were notable for their relative political stability. Within each umbrelIa clan a meeting of sultans, judges, and elders elected a khan.3 8 Each khan ruled by virtue of charismatic authority, and periods of unity among the Kazakh umbrella clans occurred because authority was vested in a single khan whose personalistic rule succeeded in commanding respect. 39 The relative political stability of the umbrella clan allowed identity to be expressed in broad-based regions. These regions, in turn, were subjected to varying political and cultural influences, owing largely to their physical location. The Younger Umbrella Clan (kishi zhuz) governed a region roughly framed by the Aral Sea, the Caspian Sea, and the Ural River. The Middle Umbrella Clan (oria zhuz) occupied the northern and central regions. The Elder UmbrelIa Clan (uly zhuz) dominated in the eastern and southeastern portions of the territory. As a consequence of this geography, before the colonial presence, proximity to the Khivan Khanate and Turkmen groups influenced the Younger Umbrella Clan. Russian traders, Bashkirs, Tatars, and Kalmyks shaped relations with the Middle Umbrella Clan. Pressures from Uyghurs, Uzbeks, and the oasis cultures affected the Elder Umbrella Clan. The result was the production of cultural difference at the level of the umbrelIa clan. Unlike umbrelIa-clan attachment, ethnic identification remained weak before the twentieth century. Notwithstanding the drive of ethnonationalist scholars to rewrite the region's history with an ethnic pen, the term qazaq (Kazakh) makes its earliest documentary appearances only in the fifteenth century.40 Kazakh identity is bestdated to the emergence in this period of the Kazakh Khanate on the ruins of the Mongol empire. 41 The northward migration of the khans Girei and Zhanibek from the Shibanid-ruled Uzbek Khanate of Abulkhair was the spark for popular identification with a new political entity. The terms qazaq and Uzbek "assumed such a meaning that they served not only to define the folIowers to the old nobility of the Shibanids, Girei, Zhanibek and their descendents, but also to distinguish among kinspeople by their place of residence, as now delimited by the frames of certain political borders."42 How far the designation qazaq went beyond a circumscribed elite in the fifteenth century is not clear. Qazaq could not have been broadly used as an ethnonym for ordinary people for three reasons. First, it

was easier to become a qazaq than one would normally expect of an ethnic group. The term itself carried the meaning of "wanderer" or "vagabond," leading some scholars to propose a linguistic link between qazaq and the Cossacks, the Slavic descendants of runaway serfs who lived at the periphery of the Russian empire;43 Residence at the margins of centralized state authority, rather than any group characteristics assumed to be immutable, underlay them both. Second, the boundaries between what today are recognized as ethnic groups were quite porous; in a number of cases, subethnic clan divisions crossed boundaries. To take a few examples: the Naiman clans are found among both Kazakhs and Kyrgyz; the Adai are found among both Kazakhs and Karakalpaks; the Qangly subdivision is found among both Kazakhs and Uzbeks; and the Arghyns are found among both Kazakhs and Turkmen. 44 Moreover, Russian colonial ethnographers with great difficulty distinguished between Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, calling the former "Kyrgyz-Kaisak"45 and the latter "Kara-Kyrgyz." In the region as a whole, identity was scaled at different levels under different circumstances. 46 Third, the primary axis of alterity before the Russian colonization was mode of economy (nomadic pastoralist versus sedentary agriculturalist). When people would meet on the steppe, the first ritualized question asked was about the health of the other's livestock. As with their sedentary counterparts, intemal cultural divisions were less socially important than a common identity as nomad. While nomadism would become a central facet of the later crystallization of a Kazakh ethnic identity, to be a nomad in the precolonial steppe did not imply ethnic belonging. For the present purposes, the most important point from the foregoing description of identity relations is the centrality of nomadic pastoralism. Indeed, nomadic pastoralism was the sustaining force behind such identity relationships and one that left a deep imprint on the identity dynamic. Specifically, nomadism privileged genealogical knowledge, diffuse authority patterns, and a segmentary social structure. It resulted from a harsh steppe environment that made the local-level encampment and associated clan(s) the most salient social division. When subsequent, exogenous forces exerted pressure on this mechanism of identity reproduction, the identity dynamic would shift and transform.

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33

RUSSIAN COLONIZATION: IDENTITY TRANSFORMATION?

Putting identity formations into historical motion is no mean task. The imposition of a colonial apparatus usually brings with it greater documentation of social change, but more written evidence does not mean that social change was absent before colonialism. Nomadic societies present particularly formidable challenges in this regard. A paucity of written material forces researchers to rely on the accounts of outsiderstravelers and colonial ethnographers-accounts which can smuggle in particular ideologies. Moreover, a wealth of orally transmitted information has remained generally underutilized as historical evidence, and the passage of time may erode its reliability.47 But the record is far from silent on identity-related issues, and a picture emerges of the limited extent of social transformation that occurred with Russian colonization. 48 Russian colonization introduced two central changes to identity politics. First, it brought the locus of authority increasingly to the level of the local clan. Second, it intensified identity divisions by raising the political stakes involved in claims to group membership.49 Nonetheless, identity relations remained relatively stable even in the late nineteenth century. As long as nomadic pastoralism dominated life in the steppe, clan retained its prominence. Of course, the architects of colonial policy sought not to transform identity relations but rather to secure for Russian traders the overland caravan routes across the steppe as prelude to the conquest of the khanates ofKhiva, Kokand, and Bukhara, with their access to Silk Road commercial opportunities. Russian industry sought new markets where its goods could compete, and Asia offered much promise. Moreover, securing the region offered geopolitical advantages vis-a-vis an expanding British presence in the region, and tsarist army officials may have sought to conquer Central Asia to reestablish the prestige of their beleaguered institution after the Crimean War debacle. 50 Finally, overpopulation in European Russia, exacerbated acutely by the emancipation of Russian serfs in 1861, fueled a continuing search for arable land that brought Slavic migrants to the steppe. Indigenous populations were not incorporated into the Russian empire all at once. First, Abulkhair Khan of the Younger Umbrella Clan swore fealty to the Russian empire in 1730, giving rise to a series of anticolonial uprisings that forestalled the Younger Umbrella Clan's

34

total capitulation to Russian rule until 1824. The Middle Umbrella Clan came under similar pressures and concluded treaties of loyalty to Russia in 1732 and 1740. Abylai Khan of the Middle Umbrella Clan resisted fuller Russian encroachment by playing Russian, Zhungar, and Manchu Chinese interests off each other. Ultimately, after Abylai's death in 1781, rule by khans in the Middle Umbrella Clan was greatly weakened, leading to the annexation of the Middle Umbrella Clan in 1822. Finally, in the Elder Umbrella Clan, some groups acceded to Russian rule in the 1820S, but others remained under the rule of the Kokand Khanate. Only with the ultimate conquest of the khanates at Bukhara, Samarqand, Khiva, and Kokand were the remaining Elder Umbrella Clan groups brought under Russian controlY The introduction of a colonial administrative apparatus brought the locus of authority to a local level by eliminating the khans. Administrative units were created first among the Middle Umbrella Clan nomads with the 1832 Regulations on the Siberian KyrgyzY Designed to be inviolable, notwithstanding the fact that they crosscut migratory routes, boundaries were created in a territory that had not previously seen them. Eliminating rule by khans, the regulations established sultans as the primary legitimate local authorities. The administrative structure began with a kin-based unit (rodovaia uprava) that consisted of about fifteen extended families and was represented by a local elder. About ten to twelve such units comprised a region (volost) that was governed by a sultan. Eighty-seven regions comprised four districts (okrug), each of which was ruled by a committee of a sultan, two other Kazakh representatives, and two Russian emissaries. 53 Additional administrative reforms localized authority even further. In 1867 the creation of three governor-generalships (Orenburg, West Siberia, and Turkestan) for the steppe populations - administrative divisions that elided traditional authority patterns-provoked profound anticolonial sentiment. 54 The result was a weakened position for the whitebone sultans and a privileging of the blackbone elites. Land was declared the property of the Russian state. Kazakhs who tried to sell or rent land were contravening imperial law, as in the Syr Darya region (oblast), where one tsarist official complained in 1909 that "in one of the uezds (districts) ... the selling of state lands by Kyrgyz nomads is practiced on quite a wide scale."55 Privileged relative to the sultans, the blackbone elite quickly found its power circumscribed by the colonial apparatus. By 1880, one

Nomads, Diffuse Authority, and Sovietization

35

observer would remark about the relative standing of the blackbone elders: "The elders still recall those times when, before the introduction by our government of well-known orders [poriadky], the many tribes [plemena] and family units [semeistva] enjoyed special meaning and did what they desired."5 6 Instead of flexible group boundaries that shifted in accordance with prevailing ecological conditions and circumstances of outside threats, segmentary identities were made more local, more clearly defined, and more closely tied to specific territories. As Russia's colonial frontier gradually moved southward, diminishing pasturage intensified competition for land, and the barymta (punitive raid on neighboring groups) became more widespread. 57 Slavic peasants supported by colonial structures continued to arrive, and a simple lack ofland for extensive pastoralism forced some nomads and semi nomads to adopt agricultural practices; maintaining a sufficient herd became more difficult without supplementary fodder produced through agriculture. Further impetus for sedentarization came in a number of forms. With the 1867 reforms that had, among other things, legally appropriated all land as imperial property, any imperial subject's claim to land stewardship required settlement and the erection of permanent structures. Some indigenous nomads themselves advocated sedentarization, seeing in it prospects for the consolidation of popular resistance. Such was the case with Kenesary Kasymov, the leader of the most widespread Kazakh revolt against Russian rule (1837-47).58 If sedentarization was largely the product of colonial encroachment, it was a product that created commercial opportunities for some former nomads. 59 As the volume of trade with Central Asia, Persia, India, China, and Russia increased, subsistence-based animal husbandry gave way to the more specialized trade oflivestock (particularly beef) and related products. In addition, microclimatic variations rendered certain areas more amenable to cultivation and neighboring sedentary groups could put pressure on indigenous populations to "acquire a taste for settled life [osedlost]."60 Perhaps not surprisingly, poor peasants tended to support sedentarization, since they often lived on the brink of subsistence in any case. 61 Some scholars consider that full sedentarization was already inevitable by the end of the nineteenth century, when a tsarist decree forcibly confiscated lands used for extensive pastoralism, thus exacerbating the land shortage further. 62

Identity divisions lay at the heart of competition over land resources that had become more acute with decreasing pasturage-a political competition that occurred along the lines of clans, umbrella clans, and ethnic divisions. In some cases, tsarist authorities were asked to adjudicate disputes between claimants that were local clans. In other cases, umbrella clan divisions entered the written record of disputes. In still others, Kazakhs demanded in ethnic terms that authorities restore to them high-quality indigenous lands that had been confiscated for use by Cossacks. 63 Ethnically marked competition for land resources became more frequent, given the broad-scale introduction of an ethnic "other." According to estimates based on the first imperial census in 1897, 18.3 percent of inhabitants of what today is part of Kazakhstan were nonKazakhs. By 1903 the northern regions of this territory witnessed a nonKazakh population of 26-4 percent, almost all of whom were Russians. 64 Enjoying the political support of the tsarist administration, these colonists were a particularly visible population with which indigenous nomads could contrast themselves. This growing colonial presence fueled political and intellectual movements of an ethnonationalist bent. However, the popular resonance of ethnic identity was still limited. Even during the most widespread anticolonial rebellion, Kenesary Kasymov was unable to keep at bay interclan rivalries. 65 As Sabol underscores, to call Kasymov's rebellion a "national-liberation endeavor" (as many post-Soviet ethnonationalist historians do, thus projecting ethnic identity where it does not belong) "bestows a level of national consciousness upon the man and the rebellion which was still many years away.,,66 The first decade of the twentieth century witnessed still-nascent ethnonationalist sentiment. Compared to that in neighboring territories, a Kazakh-Ianguage press emerged relatively late and likely enjoyed limited appeal given broad illiteracy. By 1916, a decree to conscript Central Asians into the tsarist army engendered widespread resistance expressed in ethnic terms; several years of quasi independence followed as the crisis of Russian tsardom deepened and led to civil war. But the movement was neither well coordinated nor broad based. On the eve of Soviet rule, ethnic divisions were becoming more salient. Soviet institutions would crystallize ethnic attachments much more profoundly. As important as these changes to identity relations were in the pre-

Nomads, Diffuse Authority, and Sovietization

37

Soviet steppe, they were in fact limited in the light of changes that followed. After all, the central organizing principle of nomadic pastoralism remained largely intact, notwithstanding pressures to sedentarize. Even with the gradual Sovietization of the steppe, we see that local clan identities remained the primary site of identity politics. SOVIETIZATION AND SUBETHNICITY

Early Soviet rule acutely politicized subethnic identities. Competition among clans manifested itself most clearly during the cadredevelopment efforts of the Soviet state and in land-use debates. As we shall see, initial Soviet governance did not fundamentally disrupt identity relations; rather, it ensnared them in a series of political contests. In addition, it lent clan relationships a public stigma that further shaped their dynamic. While some scholars classify Soviet rule as the epitome of coercive governance and thus "totalitarian," this state also was predicated on effective local-level administration. 67 Effective administration required administrators, and by the mid-1920s a strategy of nativization (korenizatsiia) of the regional administrative apparatus emerged. Promoting non-Slavic indigenous groups through broad-based "affirmative action" policies in cadre development,68 the new state set out to address two problems at once: (1) the widespread illiteracy and sporadic resistance that had limited Central Asians' involvement in administration, thus casting doubt on the popular legitimacy of nascent Soviet institutions, and (2) the legitimacy of alternative patterns of authority in the form of local rule by blackbone elites.

Developing Cadres The main mechanism for cadre replacement was" elections" (perevybory) to the local councils (soviets). Conducted in 1926, 1927, and 1929, these events involved a modicum of competition over posts, but Soviet authorities strongly promoted preferred local candidates over others. By 1929, official endorsement had become prerequisite for standing for office; those lacking sanction were slowly purged from the apparatus. Thus, elections were at root a means by which to develop cadres for Soviet governance. The language that Soviet authorities used for this sea change of cadres was one of class warfare. As in attempts to consolidate Soviet

Tke R~rroJKctLo"-

of C("'>ti

rule in Slavic regions, in Central Asia relatively well-to-do peasants (kulaks) were assumed to be the agents of capitalist exploitation and were accordingly targeted for political or physical extermination. In Kazakhstan the bais (rich ones) were declared to be the equivalent of the kulaks of the Slavic areas, and their stubborn attempts to cling to socioeconomic privileges by entering local state organs were declared equally reprehensible. Authorities consistently described these elections as the most effective weapon against the bais.69 The ostensible beneficiaries of this cadre replacement were to be the poor nomadsofficially, the Kazakh equivalent of poor peasants among Slavs. If it required a feat of Leninist creativity to imagine that Marx's proletarian revolution could occur in primarily agrarian Russia, the language of class warfare was particularly ill suited to describe the steppe nomads.7° To be sure, a nascent rise of class divisions was evident. The increasingly dense commerce across the steppe that accompanied tsarist-era colonization had begun to disrupt long-standing social dynamics among nomads by the end of the nineteenth century, but class stratification was still far less significant than segmentation as a social principle. Attempts to turn the poor nomad againstthe relatively well-to-do members of his clan ran up against long-institutionalized patterns of authority. This deeply complicated efforts to redefine Kaza. khs in class, rather than segmentary, terms)l In fact, blackbone elites, defined in clan terms, still enjoyed paramount authority over most everyday political matters. Olcott argues that the members of this local elite emerged from the Civil War period with their authority enhanced. Ten years previously, on the eve of World War I, Kazakh intellectuals and even relatively uneducated youth had distrusted their elders because traditional society appeared unequal to the challenges presented by the colonial power. Now ... most Kazakhs ... saw the old clan system and the traditional leaders as offering at least the hope of stability through the continuation and strengthening of a subsistence-based, livestockbreeding economy.... Clan, village, and aul authorities simply reconstituted themselves as soviets and governed their populations much as before}2

Clan-based competition overshadowed any class-based competition during the elections for cadre replacement. Blackbone elites used

Nomads, Diffuse Authority, and Sovietization

39

informal institutions to galvanize support for their candidacies to local councils. Mobilizing dense networks often based on kin ties, elites offered "hospitality" to visiting Soviet officials, who, in turn, instructed locals for whom to vote.7 3 Also common was the convening of secret meetings of the local elites to decide on various candidacies, as occurred among the Adai segment in western Kazakhstan in 1927.74 In certain cases where clans of approximately equal size occupied a given territory, elites developed informal compromises, divvying up posts before the elections.7 5 On the whole, blackbone elites largely controlled who would become representatives to the local councils, making this more a process of selection than election. As the Kazakh Central Election Commission remarked in 1926, "The Kazakh clans war [vrazhduiut] among themselves on grounds ofland tenure issues, the use of pastures, livestock breeding, etc. This clan enmity becomes especially acute during the electoral campaigns, when it becomes an all-absorbing struggle for power."76 It is worth highlighting that most competition centered on local clan, rather than umbrella clan, divisions. Umbrella clans had no arena for political expression. They were too high-level for most cadre-selection decisions. As Kuchkin notes, "[T]he arena for segmentary enmity is the volost-Ievel congress, where the interests of several clans (4-7) located on the territory of the volost collide."77 Soviet officials were not ignorant of the need to bolster the legitimacy of new Soviet institutions. Accordingly, authorities created the Koshchi Union in 1921 to Sovietize the Kazakh countryside through propaganda and education that would render segmentary links inoperative. It considered among its own tasks "to conduct a decisive battle against all forms and means of serf-like [kabal' no-krepostnicheskaia ] dependence of the poor on the well-to-do [imushchie] elements, forms and means that are connected both with the manifestations of power and authority of the patriarchal-feudal leadership and with their legal capitalistic exploitation in the aul, kishlak, and village .... "7 8 In spite of this official mandate, clan elites managed to co-opt local cells of Koshchi, in part because Koshchi lacked the financial and human resources to be effective. "We have instances when the poor peasants [bedniaki] announce that they will not join the [Koshchi] union if the rich one does not join, since they are connected to him by kin bonds," lamented one official.79 In the northern region of Qostanai, a local leader chided poor nomads for seeking to join

Tke RerroJ...cH,ol1- of C!....Jti Koshchi without consulting him first. In another instance from the same region, an elder warned, "If you join the Koshchi Union, then do not count on my qumys [fermented mare's milk] in the summertime."so Nor did periodic purges of Koshchi meet with intended success. In one example from the Shymkent uezd, almost 40 percent of the Koshchi members were removed and declared to be bais or their coconspirators. In the end, however, Soviet officialdom found it difficult to identify who enjoyed real, informal local authority because most Kazakhs preferred to conceal their kin bonds-itself a form of silent resistance. 81 Decrying the "insufficiency of purges of the Koshchi Union from the bai-atqamner (local political authority) element and the presence of clan influence in the primary cells in nomadic regions,,,s2 officials attempted to purge this institution further, but the attempts themselves seem to have exacerbated interclan rivalries. For example, in the Aqtobe region in 1926 the reorganization of Koshchi caused the "inflammation of clan enmity.,,83 Thus, if the intention of Soviet stateconstruction efforts was to provide an institutional order that would marginalize subethnic divisions as politically unimportant, in fact they made them more politically salient by increasing the stakes involved in competition.

Changing Land Tenure Patterns Similar politicizing processes occurred with questions ofland use. As described above, Russian colonial expansion deprived the steppe nomads of land for extensive pastoralism. Soviet rule politicized the question further. The Bolsheviks had built much of their popular support in the Slavic regions on promises to solve the land problem; doing so became a central priority of Soviet governance. Thus, whereas under the tsar, land-use issues had garnered attention only to secure caravan routes or prevent anticolonial uprisings, now they were at the center of the political map. Moreover, like other expanding states, the Soviet state viewed nomads and seminomads as inherently resistant to the state's control and administration of territory. Soviet authorities were thus determined to address the land question, and their efforts gradually became more radical as Stalin consolidated his power. As with cadre replacement, initial efforts in this area served to stimulate interclan competition. Using the language of

Nomads, Diffuse Authority, and Sovietization

41

class warfare to describe such competition, Kuchkin claims, "The bai of one clan organized a battle against the bai of another clan that had more arable land, [a battle that was supposedly] for the portion oEland in favor of the 'poor' clan, but [was] in actuality in favor of the bai himself."84 One report on land reform from 1926 showed how in the Qostanai region, the blackbone elite had "stood to defend not only their rights and privileges passed down to them from their fathers and greatgrandfathers, but also used in their own interests the tensions [talas] , group and kin-based disputes that had emerged in the auls on the grounds of elections and traditions, taking under their influence and exploiting not only the poor [nomads] and customs, but also the aul councils, the Koshchi Union and even the volost executive committee:'85 This politicization oEland finds imperfect reflection in the archival record. Some documents describe these disputes as being between specific auZs. Since neighboring auls were often from different local clans, inter-aul disputes were often interclan. Thus, in 1920 the People's Commissariat on Land (of the Kyrgyz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic) documented a dispute in the Torghai region between a certain V. Komebaev from the Aidapsal segment and a certain A. Dzhanbusov "and his relatives" over the "seizure and illegal use" ofland. 86 In the Turkestan autonomous republic in 1924, a similar dispute erupted between the auls Kesh-Mulla and Sary-Aghach. 87 The rich record on land disputes becomes spotty by the mid-1920s, as an idiom of class warfare was carefully cultivated to replace the vocabulary of clan divisions. Land disputes continued to be recorded, but the actors of record changed. That is, claimants were no longer recorded as clans but rather as members of socioeconomic classes or ethnic groups. Given the prominent role of Slavs in the Soviet administration and the ongoing influx of ordinary migrants from Russia, many of the disputes in the 1920S took on an interethnic coloration. Most of those disputes recorded by the People's Commissariat on Land were between Kazakhs and Russians, and most were likewise from the northem regions, where these groups competed most aggressively for land resources. One report claimed that such interethnic land conflicts "threatened to spill over as mass phenomena [v massovyi kharakter]."88 Here, too, we might reasonably ask whether conflict tended to be interethnic or whether the disputants were more likely to use ethnic categories in their appeals to officialdom. Since ethnicity was already

considered a legitimate way to organize social life while subethnicity was not, it is entirely possible that land disputes among Kazakh clans continued but the parties seldom approached Soviet officials to assist. Among the pressures on land use was the immigration of an ethnic "other" -Russian settlers. In spite of several attempts at land reform, early Soviet efforts could not accommodate the needs of a multiethnic population. In some cases, land reform had the opposite effect of exacerbating long-standing problems. For example, Soviet authorities decried how the tsar had sanctioned the illegal seizing ofKazakh land by Russian settlers. But unauthorized settlers (samovol'tsy) continued such practices well intothe 1920S, and this became the source of a number of ethnically marked disputes. 89 At the root of this challenge was Moscow's reliance on its Slavic migrants for support in the region; it could not afford to abandon this population, even if doing so would stem the land crisis. The reasons given were rational-technical in nature: migration was considered to be needed, since vast portions of Central Asia lacked the skilled labor force necessary both for the construction of a Soviet economy and for the creation of a proletarian class. 90 Naturally, by encouraging migration, Moscow only exacerbated the land shortfall. Official priorities came into tension with one another. On the one hand were thoserepresented by the People's Commissariat on Land-who in apparent earnest sought to solve land disputes by addressing the demographic pressures on land use; and on the other hand were those - represented by the All-Union Resettlement Committee-who sought to rationalize governance and economic performance through the physical movement of people. 9! Through the 1920S, solving the land question was ultimately less important than maintaining Slavic support. The essential tension between the traditional livelihood of nomads and the regime's state-building efforts continued to the end of the 1920S, when the regime abandoned its piecemeal efforts to address the land question. The route to reconciling the growing population with the perceived imperatives of socialist construction was now to be more radical: the full sedentarization of nomads. This would establish clear practices ofland tenure based on state-enforced legal boundaries. It would further economize on land, since it would turn land use from extensive to intensive practices. 92 Moreover, it would deal a frontal blow to traditional authority patterns that were intimately intertwined with extensive pastoralism as a mode of economy. One official report

Nomads, Diffuse Authority, and Sovietization

43

on the sedentarization process issued in 1931 captured this logic, claiming, "In the conditions of Kazakhstan, one of the most important factors of social reconstruction of agriculture is sedentarization that liquidates nomadic life [kochevoi byt], the extensive, rapacious economic conduct, the whole backwardness and stagnation of social and economic life of the nomadic aul of the backward national republic .... [O]nly sedentarization guarantees the unfolding of sovkhoz [Soviet agriculture] construction and the development oflarge-scale heavy industry."93 These measures had tremendous human and economic consequences. Initially, resistance to collectivization was widespread and overt, with many Kazakhs preferring to slaughter their stock en masse rather than cede it to Soviet authorities; an estimated 75 percent of the Kazakh herd was lost. 94 Famine led to mass migration, with an estimated 15 to 20 percent of the population leaving the republic for western China, Turkey, Iran, as well as other parts of Soviet Central Asia. Dramatic migration within the Kazakh steppe also occurred; the search for grain and livestock shifted entire populations. 95 By 1933, 95 percent of the population was both sedentarized and had become a part of collective farms; by contrast, in 1929 the number had stood at 7.4 percent. 96 Extensive pastoralism gave way to Soviet forms of pastoralism, which involved the erection of permanent structures, the seasonal use of more limited pasturelands, and the elimination oflong-distance migration. From the Leninist perspective, the state had fundamentally changed material conditions for the former nomad, and manifestations of subethnic identities (including their political manifestations) were thus expected to disappear. Forced collectivization and sedentarization of nomads and semi nomads did, indeed, end land disputes as an overt expression of subethnic politics, until the late Soviet period. 97

Criminalizing Clans A third aspect to Sovietization deserves attention. State-led change involved more than the attempts to eliminate traditional patterns of authority and economy-attempts that reached their radical apex in the early 1930S. It also involved the criminalization of behaviors connected with subethnic identity. Among practices identified as crimes were bride-price (qalym), the punitive raid on neighboring nomadic encampments, blood revenge (qun), polygamy, premature marriage,

Tke RetroJu.c:lio>L of cklti

44

forced marriage, and levirate. Collectively called "everyday crimes" (bytovye prestupleniia), these were the vestiges of traditional practices that the regime sought to root out. Table 2.1 summarizes official statistics on state prosecution of these crimes in early Soviet Kazakhstan. As the table illustrates, over the latter half of the 1920S, the regime prosecuted such practices with increasing zea1. 98 Both the total number of cases and the percentage of those that resulted in a conviction rose steadily over these years. The percentage of convictions that resulted in severe punishments (prison time or hard labor), however, remained relatively uniform, hovering near 80 percent. T,.M.e 2..1 Prosecution of "Everyday Crimes" in Early Soviet Kazakhstan Year

Total Cases

%Convicted

Severe Sentences, as %ofConvictions

1924-5

670

17.6

77.l

1925-6

891

21.1

84.6

1926-7

1,573

36.1

79.2

1927-8

1,707

41.2

82.6

Source: Central State Archives of the Republic of Kazakhstan, f. 1380, o.

2,

d.

242, I. 58. Note: The data included in this table include the following crimes: bride-price, underage marriage, premature marriage, and polygamy. The percentage of severe sentences (prison time or hard labor) stands in contrast to cases that resulted in probation or other milder sentences.

But, while the regime displayed an increasing commitment to rooting out these manifestations of subethnic behavior, enforcement was a perennial problem. The pages of the newspaper Engbeqshy-Qazaq (The Kazakh Worker) carried many stories of those guilty of such everyday crimes being sheltered by the members of the aul. 99 Even if punishments remained severe on paper, some archival documents indicate that they were more laxly implemented in later years, suggesting that the process had been co-opted by local elites. lOo Proactive efforts at positive change, as those to change social relationships by recruiting women into Soviet structures, such as oblast courts, ran up against local resistance. 10l As in Uzbekistan, where Mus-

Nomads, Diffuse Authority, and Sovietization

45

lim women who removed the veil in the 1920S were subject to public humiliation,102 Soviet efforts to criminalize traditional practices encountered long-standing patterns of behavior. There is a bit of truth in what Olcott suggests: "Laws against customary practices were simply not enforced, since the Kazakh officials themselves observed them."103 Indeed, these practices continued well past collectivization, if in altered form. 104 The criminalization of these behaviors did not have the intended effect, but the consequences of state policies should not be reduced to the intentions of state actors. However insufficient from the regime's perspective, this criminalization was vitally important to what clan identities would become. Chapter 3 details how the proscription on certain clan-related behaviors was related to a larger modernization project that lent these identities a public stigma.

NOMADIC PASTORALISM AND ITS IMPRINT

This chapter has detailed the close relationship between the clan system and the political economy of nomadic pastoralism. Nomadic pastoralism was the mechanism that sustained identity relations, dictating a particular relationship between social organization and land. Moreover, these traditional patterns of authority and social organization persisted through the 1920S, if in newly politicized form. As a mechanism of identity reproduction, nomadic pastoralism left an imprint on the identity dynamic. Specifically, because nomadism fostered a particular relationship to land, it created group boundaries that coalesced around the predictability of seasonal migration. Thus, in the pre-Soviet and early Soviet periods, clan politics was a politics of clearly demarcated, nested group boundaries. Group interest, group obligations, and group resentments were central to the way that it operated. This stands in contrast to the political dynamic of clans in the post-Soviet period, as chapters 5 and 6 detail. By the 1990S, clan politics was no longer about relatively coherent groups that made demands on everyday behavior and political expression; rather, it was about flexible kin-based networks that were a resource for individuals in their political and economic affairs. How this occurred is the story of chapter 3.

Far more than in the premodern era, states have gone beyond defense of the realm to offer a large chunk of the strategies of survival that people construct for themselves. - Joel Migdal Illnesses pass, but habits remain.-Kazakh proverb

AMONG THE CRITICAL IRONIES OF SOVIET RULE WAS THAT A

modernization project designed in part to eradicate clan divisions helped to contribute to their ongoing importance. As we will see, by creating a political economy based on endemic shortages, the Soviet state generally promoted tight-knit access networks-whether in Estonia or Moldova or Russia. In Central Asia and the Caucasus, it particularly promoted subethnic access networks by tapping the concealability of clan divisions (introduced in chapter 1). What had previously sustained clan-identity relations-nomadic pastoralism-was now gone, but in the Soviet period, state-generated shortage performed a similar function. In replacing pastoralism, this political economy left a profound imprint on how clan relationships were instantiated and how clan politics operated. Soviet rule deeply transformed subethnic affiliations in Central Asia. On the face of it, this point is as obvious as Soviet institutions were coercive, but it bears emphasizing. The collapse of state socialism did not impel a wholesale return to pre-Soviet political or social institutions; the Soviet collapse did not erase the Soviet experience. To the contrary, state socialism left a deep mark on Central Asia in ways that were only starting to become clear a decade after its conclusion. l This chapter shows that while Soviet authorities may have preferred to eliminate clan identities, Soviet modernization repro-

Two Faces of Soviet Power

47

duced them, in altered form. In this particular sense, clan divisions are resonant in post-Soviet Kazakhstan not in spite of the Soviet project, but rather because of the particular ways in which it was executed. 2 Given the social transformations of the Soviet period, should we draw a terminological distinction between pre-Soviet and post-Soviet subethnic identities? This is a question worth considering. The philosophers ask, "When does a red sock continually darned with green yam become a green sock?" For research on group identities with its emphasis on subjective self-definitions, the issue lies centrally with how the sock-wearer views the item in question. Were he to acquire a red sock and keep it (repairing it periodically with green yarn) over the years, it would likely remain the "red sock" in his imagination, a high percentage of green yarn notwithstanding. An outsider might disagree, measuring carefully the green surface area against the red surface area, but for the sock-wearer, the threshold to reimagine it as fundamentally different (as having become green) is much higher. Likewise with group identities: most members imagine groups as substantively continuous, as exhibiting a core sameness across time and space-notwithstanding changes that they might identify. The use of the term "clan" to describe subethnic identities before and after Soviet rule is thus not merely a step taken for analytic convenience; it represents the subjectively imagined continuity of groupness over time. To reiterate: the argument is not that clans-substantively unchanged from the pre-Soviet era-survived Soviet rule to manifest themselves in political and social life in the post-Soviet period. Nor is the argument that Soviet rule created clans (unless one defines "clan" as simply a tight-knit network that is not necessarily based on claims ofkinship). Rather, because of Soviet rule, clans- imagined as substantively continuous-persisted in particular social niches into the post-Soviet years. Their function and meaning had been altered in particular ways by state socialism. TOWARD THE ERADICATION OF CLAN AUTHORITY?

The efforts of states to transform subject populations lie at the heart of the modern condition. Demonstrating the "ecumenical character of high-modernist faiths," Scott shows that attempts at human engineering were most destructive in the former socialist bloc, but these

cases were in no sense unique. Across the globe, radical schemes designed to "improve the human condition" by reconstructing social and political interactions have multiplied and resoundingly failed} The Soviet state's extraordinary penetration into civil society is an extreme value on a more general trend. This penetration into society had enormous consequences for clan relationships. First, the regime deliberately targeted kin-based divisions for eradication, as chapter two introduced. The intention was to eliminate traditional authority patterns and undermine the bases for behavior considered to be anti-Soviet, thereby facilitating the construction of the new social order. Second, many general practices of socioeconomic transformation could have been expected to diminish the importance of clan divisions. Among these were state policies that promoted urbanization, universal literacy and education-in short, a project of modernization. This modernization project, combined with a more general climate of terror and oppression that atomized the population, did notably diminish the role that clan relationships played under Soviet rule in public. Coercion, modernization, and anti-clan campaigns removed clan identity from the public sphere. A leading Western scholar of Kazakhstan claimed in 1981 that "Kazakh clan identification is of no more than symbolic importance."4 This was clearly the intention of Soviet policy makers vis-a-vis traditional authority in Central Asia, and it underscores that important transformations had occurred. I will suggest, however, that it does not do justice to the empirical picture. We should not conflate the lack of a public presence with the lack of importance. Too many forces moved in the opposite direction, reinforcing the import of clan divisions even as their role shifted out of the public domain. There are a number of reasons why one might have expected Soviet rule to undermine traditional forms of authority and social bonds. Here, I have in mind the use of terror to atomize the population, the deep penetration of the Soviet state into society, and enormous demographic transformations. Arendt, focusing on the role of the purge, highlights the consequences of terror: In order to destroy all social and family ties, the purges are conducted in such a way as to threaten with the same fate the defendant and all his ordinary relations, from mere acquaintances up to his closest friends

Two Faces of Soviet Power

49

and relatives. The consequence of the simple and ingenious device of "guilt by association" is that as soon as a man is accused, his former friends are transformed immediately into his bitterest enemies .... It has been through the development of this devise to its farthest and most fantastic extremes that Bolshevik rulers have succeeded in creating an atomized and individualized society the like of which we have never seen before and which events or catastrophes alone would hardly have brought. 5 Even if one modifies Arendt's perspective to recognize horizontal surveillance by peers, the curious thing is that social bonds did not tear under the pressure as often as one might expect. Why? Did ordinary people encounter enormous pressure to sever their social and familial bonds, as Arendt theorizes; or, did they come into contact with a different face of the state? The reality of Soviet-era life was much more mundane than Arendt depicts. Even this state could not rule by terror alone. Terror and the purge, however central to the Western image of the USSR, did not exhaust the tools of Soviet statehood. Among its additional tools was a heavy reliance on local and regional administration. Like the prefects in the French republics, regional administrators were given significant leeway to execute directives from the center as they saw fit. 6 The result was the entrenchment of existing patterns of authority' not their replacement with an undifferentiated mass of atomized individuals. A particularly common practice was forcible resettlement, a sort of "demographic engineering."7 Indeed, in the 1920S, Moscow relocated the Kazakh population, en masse, both within Central Asia and beyond. Detached from their ancestral lands, many Kazakhs lost ties to their extended-kin communities and were forced to resettle in unfamiliar territory. Policies of deportation and relocation were important, but their impact on kin ties should not be assumed. There are indications that population movements occurred in large groups; that is, large numbers of kin-related individuals found themselves forcibly resettled to new locations. 8 Second, ethnic Kazakhs remained disproportionately rural. They therefore generally stayed put in a given locale once the tumults of Stalinism were over. In fact, urban migration was more limited by the Soviet state than one might expect-a point sorely neglected in most accounts. 9

Urbanization - along with education and economic developmentwas part and parcel of the Soviet modernization project. This project could be expected, all else equal, to diminish the importance of kinship. Literacy, the logic goes, produces social mobility by qualified individuals for increasingly specialized work. It severs traditional ties to place and kin by generating new social opportunities and relationships that edge kinship from the social scene. Education, especially exosocialization that physically removes individuals from tradition-bound locales, accelerates this process dramatically. Urbanization finally strains familial bonds and reduces the density of contact within kin. As a result, clan relationships suffer. Although the outcome was not what modernization theorists would expect, these processes were operative under Soviet rule. Literacy became almost universal. Education levels rose dramatically, as Kazakhstan's levels approximated those for the USSR (table F).

Tc.Me }-1 Percent Population (over age 10) with Higher or Secondary Education 1959

1970

1979

Kazakhstan

34.7

46.8

63.3

USSR, total

35.4

45.8

63.9

Source: O. K. Makarova, M. P. Zhdanova, and E. A. Timofeeva, Chislennost' i sostav naseleniia SSSR po dannym vsesoiuznoi perepisi naseleniia 1979 goda (Moscow: Finansy i statistika, 1984), 30-31. Note: There exist more recent data from the 1989 census concerning education levels, but the data are not comparable with that of earlier years because the former calculate percentages from age 15. See Gosudarstvennyi komitet SSSR po statistike, Uroven' obrazovaniia naseleniia SSSR: po dannym vsesoiuznoi perepisi naseleniia 1989 g. (Moscow: Finansy i statistika, 1990), 8.

Aggregate data on Kazakhstan do not speak directly to education levels among ethnic Kazakhs in particular. We have some data broken down by ethnic categories across the USSR. Table p shows that education levels for ethnic Kazakh specialists were the highest among Central Asian groups, although slightly lower than those for ethnic Russians. If education, ceteris paribus, undermines kinship, then Kazakh clans in particular should have been dealt a serious blow under Soviet rule.

Two Faces of Soviet Power T...Lkyz. Specialists with Higher and Secondary Education per 1,000 Population

1959

1970

change, 1959-1970

Russians

72.8

134.9

62.1

Kazakhs

41.5

94.0

52.5

Kyrgyz

38.5

84.0

45.5

Uzbeks

30.3

75.7

45.4

Turkmen

39.8

79.9

40.1

Tajiks

32.7

67.5

34.8

Source: Robert A. Lewis, Richard H. Rowland, and Ralph C. Clem, Nationality and Population Change in Russia and the USSR: An Evaluation of Census Data, 1897-1970 (New York: Praeger, 1976), 337. Note: Data are restricted to the population aged 16 to 59. The authors indicate on page 336 that the "specialist" category is "composed mainly of technicians, agronomists, and the like."

Urbanization is a more complicated issue; while urban areas grew dramatically across Central Asia, titular Central Asians remained largely rural, and ethnic Slavs formed the bulk of the region's urban residents. From the aggregate data, the decline of rural population is clear (table n). The more complete (although still aggregate) data available only for Kazakhstan present an even more dramatic change in that republic, from 93 percent rural in 1920 to 43 percent rural in 1989 (table 3.4). Again, the territory-based data do not tell us about ethnic groups residing in that territory. Using ethnic categories, dramatic urbanization occurred for Kazakhs across the USSR, most of which occurred in the period from 1926 to 1959 (table 3.5). Thus, although more Kazakhs lived in rural than in urban areas, painting a more moderate picture of Kazakh urban migration, the process of urbanization in Kazakhstan, and the other Muslim areas of the USSR, was nonetheless dramatic. lO Indeed, Soviet authorities, fearing that migration processes might prove ungovernable, limited the flow of migrants to the cities of Central Asia. 11 In any case, rural overpopulation was less the story of Kazakhstan, which, in contrast to the other Central Asian republics that relied heavily on manual labor in cotton fields, came to enjoy largely mechanized agriculture.

Tke RerroJH-ctLoJ1. ofck.u

52

T,.J.k ).) Percent Rural Population by Republic

1939

1959

1970

1979

Kazakhstan

72

56

50

46

Uzbekistan

77

83 81

63 63

58

Tajikistan

66 67 66 54 52

63 52

Kyrgyzstan

67 68

Turkmenistan USSR, total

65 61 52 38

44

Source: O. K. Makarova, M. P. Zhdanova, and E. A. Timofeeva, Chislennost' i sostav naseleniia SSSR po dannym vsesoiuznoi perepisi naseleniia 1979 goda (Moscow: Finansy i statistika, 1984), 9.

TC4-Lk)'4 Percent Rural Population in Kazakhstan

1913 90

1920

1926

1939

1959

1970

1979

1989

93

91

72

56

49

46

43

Source: Gosudarstvennyi komitet Kazakhskoi SSR po statistike, Narodnoe khoziaistvo Kazakhstana za 70 let: statisticheskii sbomik (A1ma-Ata: Izdatel'stvo "Kazakhstan," 1990), 9·

TC4-Lk).) Percent Urban Population by Ethnic Category Kazakhs

1926 2.1

1959 24.3

1970 26.3

1979 30.9

Russians

22.1

59.0 43.8

69.1 50.3

73.9 53.5

Total

8.3

Source: M. Kh. Asylbekov and A. B. Galiev, Sotsial'no-demogra/icheskie protsessy v Kazakhstane (1917-1980) (Alma-Ata: Ghylym, 1991), 137.

As with education and urbanization, other measures of economic and social development paint a clear picture: Kazakhstan was dramatically transformed under seventy years of Soviet rule. Healthcare provision became almost universal. If in 1920 there were 0.8 physicians per 10,000 people, by 1989 there were 41.0. 12 Even if we are wise not to put too much stock in Soviet economic data, growth rates

Two Faces of Soviet Power

53

for industrial production rose exponentially during the Soviet period. 13 Dramatic pressures for socioeconomic change aside, we do not see from the above indicators any effect that they might have had on clan identities. Even in the midst of Soviet modernization practices-long after collectivization and sedentarization had been executed to ensure fealty to the Soviet party-state-subethnic networks were evident in patterns of political patronage. Kuchkin quotes the First Secretary of the republican Party Central Committee of Kazakhstan from a 1947 article, who reported, We have cases of the selection of workers by their kin and familial marker, which leads to the obstruction of the party and state apparatus with random and alien people, creates an atmosphere of nepotism [semeistvennost'] and groupism [gruppovshchina] , slows the growth and education of Bolshevik cadres from the local population ... [For example,] the First Secretary of the Karynkol Party district committee of Alma-Ata region Beisembaev puts in leadership positions people close to him who are from the same Alban clan as he, without consideration of their political or business qualities. Nine workers from the Alban clan were chosen for the apparatus of the party district committee (raikom).14 The reason, I suggest, is that key processes moved in precisely the opposite direction, reinforcing the importance of clan ties as a resource for ordinary people.

PRIVATIZING CLAN DIVISIONS

Moscow took two complementary steps that promoted subethnicity. First, it removed kinship from the public domain. Second, it lent clans import in private spheres. I take each step in turn.

Nationalities Policy and Cultural Modernization Soviet nationalities policy-an evolving set of state actions vis-a.-vis cultural minorities-served to remove clan divisions from public life, relegating them to private spheres. This occurred principally through deliberate state-led campaigns to root out manifestations of clan relationships.

54

On its face, Soviet nationalities policy was a creative policy designed first to accommodate preexisting cultural divisions, in order to transform them into something qualitatively new. I5 Early policy involved attempts at the republican level to consolidate "national" communities from preexisting cultural divisions. As a drive for modernization, Soviet policy was like other such nation-building efforts, except in one critical respect: it attempted to consolidate national communities at a level that was not coterminous with the territorial frontiers of the state. Thus, early efforts involved what Martin terms "affirmative action" policies to promote indigenous cadres and the broad use of republican languages-all within clearly demarcated administrative subunits. I6 Once thus consolidated, the thinking went, these communities would in turn become part of a larger community represented not by ethnocultural frontiers, but by the new Homo sovieticus. Martin captures this awkward logic: "[T]he Communist Party assumed leadership over the usual process of national formation, and took positive action to construct Soviet international nations (nations in form not content) that would be content to be part of a unitary Soviet state."17 Thus, Moscow institutionalized ethnoterritorial administration as part of a project of positive cultural transformation. The central notion was that by accommodating ethnic "needs," "the Soviet state had not only facilitated the achievement of stateness, but in many cases the consolidation of nationhood as well."18 Such practices inscribed ethnicity as a central principle of daily social and political life in the Soviet period. I9 As the Soviet experiment deepened, even in areas such as Central Asia, where ethnic distinctions had previously carried far less meaning than did other divisions, the outcome was to make ethnicity the vehicle for political competition and agendas. Many practices that at first blush deemphasized ethnicity often had the opposite effect. Soviet internationalism came to involve a significant degree of linguistic, cultural, and demographic Russification. Homo sovieticus only seemed to be unmarked ethnically; in fact, Sovietization brought a significant degree of assimilation to the dominant Russian patterns. 20 In Kazakhstan in particular, a massive influx of Russians and a decimation of the Kazakh population rendered Kazakhs a minority in their "own" republic, at 39 percent of the population in 1989. Kazakhs who sought professional advancement gained their literacy and education through

Two Faces of Soviet Power

55

Russian, which dominated all aspects of public life. This internationalism had a distinctively ethnic Russian face.

The Destructive Side of Modernization Moscow thus promoted ethnic categories, elevating them as the legitimate vehicle for group identity. But Soviet policies of cultural modernization were Janus-faced. On the one hand, they involved the positive transformation of peoples into something new-something ethnic and, eventually, "international." On the other, they involved attempts to move peoples away from tradition. While the creative side of this policy privileged ethnicity, its destructive side set out to eliminate subethnic divisions. A central teleology remained constant in the cultural modernization project, notwithstanding debates about specifics: populations were understood to advance along clearly demarcated historicoevolutionary stages, prodded along by various forces for social integration that consolidated identities at ever-higher taxonomic levels. 21 Deemed ill suited to the objective of socialist construction, identity groups that were "earlier" in their development were considered "culturally backward."22 Marx-inspired in its particulars, this teleology also informed the efforts of European colonial powers to administer the populations of sub-Saharan Africa. 23 Branded as primitive, the nomads and seminomads in Soviet territory were viewed as little different from sedentary groups.24 Instead, beginning with a central normative and taxonomic principle-that class stratification propelled historico-evolutionary stages - the emerging regime classified such societies as a variation on the theme of feudalism. 25 From this perspective, clan identities that persisted into the period of socialist construction were considered the vestiges (perezhitki) of feudalism. The implication was clear: nomads and semi nomads were subject to the same laws of historical development (and, what is more important, to the same rules of Soviet governance) as their sedentary counterparts. Given backwardness, some populations had further to travel en route to socialist construction than others. Those so designated had to pass several stages of development in short order. As one official remarked about indigenous groups (malye narody) in Siberia at a 1931 meeting of the All-Union Central Executive Committee, the national republics saw "the creation of new nationalities out of tribes which

Tke Rer-ro.L..dio>1.. of cf.c..Jti had earlier never dreamed of national existence ... [and] their transition in just six years through all the stages of development, which for other peoples required thousands of years."26 The chairman ofKazakhstan's Sovnarkom wrote in 1937 that "the Kazakh people had evolved from backward and feudal tribes into a socialist nation and a socialist national state."27 By 1967, one Kazakh scholar would claim that the Kazakh people [narod] achieved enormous successes in all spheres oflife: in the shortest historical time-span, it liquidated its former economic and cultural backwardness, created modern industry [and] socialist high-mechanized agriculture, put into practice a cultural revolution, lifting itself from the middle ages to the heights of modern progress. Now the toilers of the Kazakh aul, in the great family of peoples of the Soviet Union, are constructing the bright building [sic] of communism."28

The modernization project discursively targeted clans. Every reference to them underscored their anachronistic nature, implying that it was merely a matter of time before the new state would eliminate the material bases for, and therefore any expression of, these subethnic behaviors. As if to underscore clans' incompatibility with Soviet institutions, many practices deemed ill-suited to the new order - even if their connection to the old one was tenuous - were considered vestiges of the past. Misdemeanor crimes as unspecific to the old order as theft, domestic abuse, or drunkenness, for example, were thus distanced from the new, socialist ones as anachronistic. 29 By depicting kin-related practices as obsolescent and confined to generations that were literally passing away, the regime explained their persistence in ways that were consistent with socialist construction.3° Officially, these were practices that were fated to disappear as the material conditions for their perpetuation changed, although it was not clear when this would occur. As one scholar put it several years after Stalin's death, "These and other phenomena that are alien to communist ideology have disappeared, or are almost disappearing. Only their vestiges remain, which are doomed to a final ruin in the nearest future."3 1 This prosecution of "everyday crimes" remained a centerpiece of the state's transformative agenda throughout the Soviet period. The bride-price, for example, earned the designation "socially dangerous"

Two Faces of Soviet Power

57

in the criminal codes of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR), Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, and ArmeniaY Ethnographic expeditions dispatched by the Academy of Sciences to Central Asia and the Caucasus focused specifically on these everyday crimes. Motivated in part by the imperative to root them out, they found many such practices. Many more may have been missed, as the practices often assumed covert forms that were less likely to be detected, let alone prosecuted.3 3 If the effort to prosecute was constant, its character changed after Stalin. As state strategy shifted from "terror plus ideology" to a greater emphasis on ideology and propaganda efforts in the post-Stalin years, some Soviet policy makers began to advocate cultural initiatives to combat subethnic behaviors.34 As one Kyrgyz scholar emphasized, since the "objective" material bases for these behaviors had disappeared with the demise of nomadic pastoralism, any vestige thereof had to be "ideological."35 And ideological ills demanded educational remedies: "[T]he carriers of vestiges of the past in general are not anti-socialist elements, but ordinary toilers, who, by virtue of an insufficient level of consciousness, become the custodians of vestiges. These people can be freed of vestiges only by way of education and re-education with the help of the means of Soviet culture."36 The public stigma that clan behaviors entailed was profound. Authors and scholars faced a difficult reception when their works touched on subethnic divisions. State censors would only allow publication on themes of subethnicity that either depicted these divisions as disappearing from the new socialist order, or treated them historically. But even the historical treatment of these divisions entailed risks. Ilias Esenberlin's historical novels, beginning with Khan Kene in 1970, faced publication delays and the watchful eyes of censors; their publication generated a strong reaction in the republican press. He was accused of having "abandoned the real principles of literature, and giving birth to protection [ism ], familial ties, localism, and clannishness [rushyldyq]."37 By recounting the role of kinship groups in certain historical developments, the author had-as far as officialdom was concerned - implied the superiority of those groups over others. The mere mention of clan divisions among Kazakhs, even in their historical contexts, entailed risks. His work was "dangerous" and "yearned for the past."3 8 It thus generated polemical public responses

Tke Rer-roJRc!LO>1- of cl....>ti on the pages of the official newspapers such as Sotsialistik Qazaqstan. His work received the positive recognition that many felt it deserved only in the post-Soviet period.39 The stigma held for the work of historians and other academics as well. One prominent ethnographer, who wrote a book categorizing subethnic divisions of the Middle Umbrella Clan, described in an interview how his work was viewed as a form of "national deviation."40 Critics contended that it heightened ethnonational sentimentY Such a perspective had vitality; one such critic continued to view kinship divisions as dangerous well into the 199os.42This public stigma had consequences. If in the pre-Soviet era, subethnic difference had been established through the dense exchange of genealogical knowledge (recall from chapter 1 that Kazakhs held knowledge of at least seven generations of common ancestry as axiomatic), now such information was not exchanged publicly. In the absence of obvious visible markers that provided subethnic differentiation, place of residence began to playa more important role. In fact, especially for rural Kazakhs, the name of the collective farm on which one resided became an indicator of subethnic background. In this sense, collective-farm (kolkhoz) identity was not a novel identification, as one Soviet ethnographer implies: "In the contemporary aul the division of Kazakhs into clans and tribes has also disappeared. Their union into collective farms-kolkhozes created by the territorial marker ... facilitated this. Upon meeting, Kazakh farmers ask now, not to which clan does one or another person belong, but from what kolkhoz is he: the consciousness of clan belonging has been replaced now by a consciousness of belonging to a productive collective."43 Collective farm identity was often not separable from subethnic belonging. Frequently, the kolkhoz itself contained the members of only one or very few clans. Kolkhoz was a marker that literally coincided with subethnic divisions. 44 The Korbe expedition report concluded that in 1949 the collective farms that we visited [in southeastern Kazakhstan 1 consisted basically of the members of one ruu [ru, clan 1with the exception of those sent by raion organizations or occupying paid positions (bookkeepers, accountants, drivers, carpenters, etc.). So, the population of the "Stalin" kolkhoz belongs to the Taz subdivision of the Alban

Two Faces of Soviet Power

59

clan, that of "Bel'basar" kolkhoz belongs to the Akhsha subdivision of the Dulat clan, that of "Engbekshy" and "Aral" kolkhozes which neighbor "Bel'basar" belong to the Khozhai subdivision of the same clan, that of the "Yntaly," "Zhanga Tyrmys," and "Tel'man" kolkhozes belong to the Shymyr subdivision. 45 With the traditional means of establishing subethnic difference thus disrupted, kolkhoz residence was the only possible public marker of identity and difference. In private, however, the lines of clan identity and difference continued to pervade everyday life - in large part because of the critical advantages that they offered in navigating the Soviet political economy. In short, the net consequence of the Soviet project of cultural modernization was not to eliminate clans, but rather to critically diminish their public expression.

Shortage and Subethnicity: Really-Existing Socialism for Ordinary People Clan identities were driven from legitimate public space, but it was not inevitable that they would remain important in private affairs. Ultimately, they became salient outside of the public domain because the Soviet command system made it advantageous to employ them. The regime had undermined nomadic pastoralism, had conducted coercive practices that disrupted traditional social relations, and had embarked on ambitious projects of socioeconomic and cultural modernization. But it gave other, different impetus to subethnic clan relationships. The idea that Soviet practices produced unintended outcomes is becoming clearer more than a decade after the Soviet collapse. We have noted that policies designed to contain, and eventually to eliminate, ethnic identifications willy-nilly encouraged expressions thereof. This much is now evident, even from a bird's-eye view. 46 A closer, ethnographic look at state socialism shows an important role for the shortages that plagued the system. Shortages fueled outbidding by ethnonationalist actors eager to rise to prominence, as Verdery has illustrated for the Romanian case. 47 In Central Asia, the consequences of the shortage political economy were similarly unintended. The architects of central planning were not concerned with clans per se. Their main goal was to reach the pinnacle of economic modernism: to ensure the rational alloca-

60 tion and use of human and material resources, striving to perfect economic relationships by ensuring fairness for individual actors and unprecedented efficiency for the system as a whole. The result-we now know-was quite different. In contrast to demand-driven systems, the state socialist political economy was particularly susceptible to supply fluctuations. Facing little in the way of a profit motive, producers were understandably preoccupied with lowering their costs by securing cheaper inputs; the quality of their outputs declined. Gaining access to these cheaper inputs became a central mode of operation. 48 For their part, consumers, faced with the inferior quality and poor availability of goods, encountered escalating costs in the form of lengthy queues. They either chose to wait for goods to be provided through official channels or developed informal strategies to procure them. Thus, a gray market economy based on circumventing formal mechanisms emerged to shadow the official one and became all-pervasive under state socialism.49 All along the chain of production, goods were scarce, giving rise to alternative means of acquisition. This second economy became especially institutionalized and routine in the 1960s through the 1980s, but historians have noted its operation even under the tumults of Stalinism. 50 Nor were these processes limited to economic goods; they touched on political goods (information, access to power) as well. The networks under state socialism were unusual in scope, not in kind. Such networks playa role in all political economies, even laissez-faire ones, although the myth of the free market is that it involves individuals with full information and full access to all possible goods making choices that put pressures on prices and supplies. Real-world transactions rarely work this way. As Granovetter famously points out, networks of individuals are in one way or another necessary to any large-scale political economyY Even producers in today's electronic commerce, who may enjoy a manyfold reduction in information deficits and access problems, bundle goods and services together in ways that belie the mythical functioning of a "free market." Nonetheless, in the socialist political economy, access networks multiplied. Networks that in Russian are called blat and in Mandarin guanxi are examples of the same phenomenon-alternative means of access to scarce goodsY As Kornai models, the mechanisms for gaining access to goods through official channels were often

Two Faces of Soviet Power inefficient and slow moving;53 an urban resident could buy an apartment as authorized, but this might take years to accomplish. Alternatively, ties to those with privileged access to power, goods, or services could supply such goods in much shorter order. 54 The reciprocal granting of favors resulted in the proliferation of such networks of access. Some of these modes of access were based on ties created during the Soviet period; others were based on pre-Soviet social relationships. Professional or educational background, ethnic affiliation, and ideological predisposition all could animate networks. Ledeneva illustrates the myriad ways in which such networks operated in the Russian context, where the word blat became a catch-all term.55 Thus, even in those republics where kinship structures had not previously existed, the command economy produced access networks, what some mistakenly refer to as "clans." In the ex-Soviet south, where preexisting kin-identity divisions provided a ready cultural connection, the result was to shore up subethnic networks of access. In Central Asia and the Caucasus, networks coalesced around genuine kin connections, since subethnic background was considered axiomatic. Thus, across a vast region, the command political economy promoted access networks of many sorts, but it especially served to perpetuate preexisting subethnic ties. In in-depth interviews from the late 1990S through 2002, ordinary Kazakhs who had been adults during the Soviet period found nothing extraordinary about using kin connections to secure access to economic, social, or political goods. Housing, healthcare, or consumer durables were the usual targets of their efforts, but some used their connections to gain some influence over local political decisions. Of course, the extent and depth of such networks were variables, not constants.s6 Some subethnic divisions were not preserved in this form, having instead been disrupted by terror, collectivization, famine, population movements, and other social cataclysms. But many such networks emerged as useful mechanisms by which individuals could survive the daily exigencies of state socialism. Figure 3-l provides a model of how ordinary people were able to access goods through different networks. The figure simplifies the choices that ordinary Soviet citizens faced. First, they could choose the formal sector (authorized channels, shopping in stores) or the informal sector (unofficial transactions, trading

62 access type 1

formal sector

network type

1:. . ·. ·_ _··1 non-kin .........

informal sector

1--"'1

exchange type

1--. ..........

immediate exchange (low trust)

......:.l ,--_ _ _ _ _ _ _-,

kin networks I-....-!.~ diffuse exchange (high trust)

fis-re }o1. Model of Options for Goods Procurement goods through connections). While networks were never entirely absent even in the formal sector (suggested by the dotted lines), they were much stronger (suggested by the solid lines) in the informal sector. Networks were based on non-kin and/or kin-based connections. Either could provide access to goods. Kin-based networks, however, generated the high trust that allowed for diffuse exchange of goods, while many non-kin based networks required immediate exchange of goods (often, bribes), because they were not based on high levels of trust. The model describes the everyday experiences of ordinary Kazakhs under state socialism. These patterns emerge from in-depth interviews for which ten interviewees were selected along a number of critical criteria. The average duration of these conversations was five to six hours. Because underground access networks are a sensitive topic, intensive interviewing was necessary to elicit internally valid responses. (See the appendix for details.) All interviewees used access networks-some more frequently than others. As one woman reported, "If you do something good for someone, it will come back to you eventually." When she and her husband first moved to Kazakhstan from Soviet Russia, he received his position at a local prison not through normal job-allocation channels (Russian: raspredelenie), but rather "through an acquaintance" (tanys arqyly). In turn she, a nurse by profession, would return the favor by offering false documentation of a fictional medical diagnosis (spravka) that allowed the recipient to avoid service in the armed forces.57 Certain professions allowed the employee to navigate shortages with particular success. Accordingly, these jobs were considered more valuable than others. On collective and state farms, livestock experts

Two Faces of Soviet Power (zootekhnikter) were responsible for overseeing the herd and could file official paperwork claiming that an animal had died a natural death, while in fact slaughtering it for private use. This accounting maneuver made the position particularly attractive. In a similar way, agronomists (agronomdar) were responsible for cultivation and informally set aside produce for private use. Mechanics enjoyed particularly good access to spare parts for tractors, combines, and other farm machinery, which was in perpetually short supply. They thus could generate additional income or acquire additional goods through barter. 58 Another respondent added to this list of valuable professions that of bookkeeper, since those who presented the formal accounting of enterprises to the authorities were prone to malfeasance.59 Those who worked in commerce, even as salespeople in small rural townships, also enjoyed a privileged position. They were the first to access hard-to-get goods that made it to the storefront, which they reserved either for personal use or for the granting of favors. 60 In a similar vein, an interviewee who had a career in education claimed that it made no sense to compare teachers with a warehouse manager (Russian: zaveduiushchii sklada), for the latter enjoyed excellent access to scarce goods. 61 , This mutual granting of favors was pervasive across the Soviet expanse; it often worked along kinship lines in Central Asia. Many interviewees explained their use of kin connections as something inherent to Kazakh hospitality.62 "There was Kazakhness [qazaqshyIyq 1then," reminisced one respondent, contrasting the widespread granting of hospitality in the Soviet period to the lack thereof in the post-Soviet period. When she moved as a youngster from Russia, her relatives helped her family to resettle smoothly in Kazakhstan. The broad use of connections, bordering on nepotism (sybailastyq), is something that Kazakhs cannot avoid, she added. If someone from the kin group commits a crime, relatives do everything possible to free that person and set him or her straight. 63 Mutual assistance among kin was what distinguished Kazakhs from other ethnic groups, especially Russians. Kazakhs "do not abandon their kin," the same respondent offered. 64 Even an interviewee who denied ever using kin connections (claiming instead that everyone in his extended family achieved success based on merit alone) admitted that it was a "habit" for Kazakhs to help each other during weddings, funerals, and the like. The sentiment was echoed by most other respon-

dents. 65 One interviewee suggested that such mutual assistance was necessary only because, unlike native speakers of Russian, they did not enjoy significant social mobility because of weaker facility with the language. Kazakhs simply had to use their kin ties to get good jobs. 66 Another respondent lambasted a brother who had the wherewithal to help his kin but did not do so, saying that he was "like a Russian," and exhibited "Russian behavior."67 An ethnically Russian interviewee offered a similar picture, characterizing Kazakhs' assistance to kin as "normal."68 Many critical goods-economic, social, or political-could be obtained through kinship. When children were sent away to study at institutes, they typically lived with distant relatives in the destination city. Even abundant cash sometimes could not make scarce goods become available; reliance on relatives was commonplace in such circumstances. 69 Using more distant clan connections, rather than close ties of extended family, also helped to avoid the appearance of nepotism-a prosecutable crime. In one case, an interviewee who categorically denied ever using kin ties in fact had his clanmates in the military committee (voenkom) get a job for one of his sons. Returning the favor years later, the interviewee held a position open for a relation of the clanmate in the school where the interviewee worked.70 Such diffuse exchanges of favors characterized the moral economy ofkinship relations. Those who claimed early in interviews never to have used kin connections in fact had done so. Respondents were acutely aware that using clan networks was publicly frowned upon. Many were initially reticent to discuss the subject. Some romanticized Soviet governance as having provided such material plenty that no one needed to resort to kinship.71 By the second or third hour of each interview, the respondents began to reveal kin connections that they had initially deniedY Typical was a teacher who insisted that he and his children relied only on their own merits and their own labor. Examples to the contrary eventually emerged: his younger cousin helped him to procure an apartment (a scarce commodity); relatives occasionally lent each other cash; and he used influence at the local school to secure work for acquaintances.7 3 Another interviewee who claimed not to need kin assistance eventually admitted to benefiting deeply from relatives in the tax police, the internal affairs department, the local police, the local traffic police, institutions of higher education, and the like.74

Two Faces of Soviet Power With regard to higher education, kin relatives could provide anything from room, board, and study advice to direct connections to acquaintances on the admissions committees. 75 One way to avoid public or state scrutiny with regard to clan connections was to rely on in-laws and their kin connections. Kazakhs traditionally elevated patrilineage as the central organizing principle of clan identity. Maternal background mattered relatively little in this regard. Naturally, this changed under the shortage economy, since maternal background was as useful for goods acquisition as paternal background was. Thus, one informant stressed how important in-laws were in making acquaintances (quda zhek-zhat holu), who could prove useful in the future. Citing a Kazakh proverb traditionally used to describe the way a man chooses a wife, he infused it with instrumental content: "Choose the girl by looking at the mother" (sheshesine qarap,

qyz qylyp).76 Clans were effective tools to navigate the shortages of state socialism, but most had lost touch with clans as a cultural phenomenon. Several interviewees made simple mistakes about the umbrella clan background of key historical figures. For example, one who recounted the umbrella clan background mistakenly claimed that Abai Qunanbai was from the same umbrella clan as Syrym hat yr. 77 Another claimed that the Qypshaq subdivision was from the Younger Umbrella Clan, which is incorrect. 78 Few respondents used the corporate names of clans in the course of conversation; while they relied heavily on clan relations, they ceased to refer to them as collectivities. In one unusual case, a respondent referred to a relative by marriage as "the Qongyrat" (a prominent subdivision of the Middle Umbrella Clan)-an appellation used in lieu of the person's given name,79 Another recounted in detail the history of her Zhangalbaily clan, from the Younger Umbrella Clan. 8o The remainder of respondents rarely used collective terms of reference. What were the limits of the use of kin ties?81 Cash could temper the salience of kin ties in everyday life. As one interviewee put it, "Those who have money forget their relatives and their enemies."82 The logic was that money-based exchange allowed people to rely less on relatives and even engage on an equal footing with their (former) enemies. One interviewee was particularly forthright about his willingness to offer and receive side payments. He bribed an army official not to draft him in 1939 and offered a series of such payments to help

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his children with access to higher education. This need to offer bribes arose from the lack of personal connections. 83 But the relationship between economic status and use of kin ties was a complicated one. Interviewees who were poor throughout the Soviet period often claimed not to have used kin connections. 84 One insisted that she could not get her daughter into an institute of higher education for lack of ties. On the other hand, this respondent admitted to being unusual in this regard, since she saw what she regarded as corruption and nepotism all around her. 85 One respondent from the Younger Umbrella Clan claimed that "Soviet power gave me nothing." Widowed early and the mother of ten children, she worked manual labor throughout much of her life and claimed that no kin ties helped her to overcome her difficulties. Her umbrella clan was ill-represented in the Shymkent region where she lived, her network of kin ties less extensive. But even she, when pressed, recounted an example of using kin networks when she described relying on a clan tie to get building materials for her rural home. 86 The geographic concentration of umbrella clans assisted people in using clan networks. Thus, a respondent who had grown up in Uzbekistan as a part of the Kazakh minority there professed never to have encountered "tribalism" (traibalizm) there, but when he moved to southern Kazakhstan (the native land of his ancestors), he encountered clan connections in full force. 87 In a supply-driven economy without freed prices, money did not always win the day. An interviewee gave a bribe for his daughter's admission to an institute; she was denied entry, while the bribe was pocketed nevertheless. 88 Exactly the same thing occurred with another interviewee. 89 As chapter 7 illustrates, in the 1990S the introduction of a monetarized economy with largely free prices made money more valuable relative to kin connections. The reciprocal granting of favors sometimes took on a locale-based, rather than kin-based, flavor. For example, one interviewee described the frequency of the practice of asar, in which the members of the community put aside time to offer their labor to other members of the community. The expectation of the helpers is that they will one day require such labor in return. This informal, rotating labor pool continued to operate in the 199os.90 In some cases, kinship was circumscribed or overshadowed by other types of networks. For example, one interviewee who was a local union

Two Faces of Soviet Power leader (a government post with considerable local authority) described in great depth the extent of his personal connections in the region. He claimed, with some plausibility, not to rely on kin; by virtue of his profession, he enjoyed the fruits of relationships with many non-kin as well. For him, it was the source of some pride that he could claim not to enjoy privileged insider relationships. His wife was even given an award (mat'-geroina) for having a large family that carried privileged access to consumer goods. Yet she did not avail herself of this privileged access. Because his above-ground, professional position accorded him a wide array of contacts, he did not need this additional benefit. 91 Often, however, what at first glance appeared not to involve kin in fact involved them deeply. One informant described in great detail the members of his high-school class with whom he retained close ties over the decades. Upon further probing, it became clear that he remained closest to those with whom he was closest genealogically. Whether this was intended or not, he mapped kin relations onto his network of friends. 92 Along these lines, a case described above is particularly illustrative: the respondent had his clanmates in the military get a job for one of his sons in return for his holding open a position for a relation of that clanmate in the school where he worked. Both avoided the impression of nepotism by exercising favoritism not directly to relatives, but through an indirect exchange that only on its surface appeared to have nothing to do with kin relations. 93 Ultimately, while non-kin networks were an alternative to kin-based ones, the former had a noteworthy disadvantage: they did not necessarily tap into the deep-seated trust that clan ties invoked. For this reason, transactions among non-kin were typically more immediate, more likely to be cash based, and more likely to be a tangible exchange than those involving kin (illustrated in figure p). Transactions with nonkin involved a better chance of being deceived. Non-Kazakh interviewees had a different perspective on the utility of kinship. The Russian community in southern Kazakhstan was relatively small, urban, professional, and they were the beneficiaries of many Soviet privileges. Moreover, their tradition of assisting kin was weaker than among Kazakhs.94 As a result, the Russian respondent, who had moved to Kazakhstan from Leningrad (Russia) in 1973, detailed the frequent use of blat in the Soviet period:

68 In certain circles of the population, the word blat was used quite often. And some pronounced it with a sense of pride: "I got [it] through blat," or jokingly, or sometimes with a sense of envy: "He's got it good; he has blat." There was a saying of sorts that "blat is higher than the People's Committee [narkom]," since a person who had blat was considered all-powerful. Blat was necessary to get a better job and this did not mean a higher-paying one, but meant access to goods that were in deficit. Consultations with specialists, clothing, footwear-all of this was accessed through blat. 95

All the same, she made clear the difference between Russian blat and Kazakh kin-based assistance: Russian blat . .. pursued the goal of prestige, influence, and some sort of distinctiveness from other people. But the Kazakh [version] took root on the desire to have additional means, additional produce [produkty], because, as you know, the Kazakh family as a rule is large and therefore to have a little bit more was desirable. But they, of course, engaged in commerce [pritorgovyvali], since they did not have [a professional] specialization and lacked other options. So, they worked to supplement their income, procured produce, resold them at a higher price. They lived on this.9 6

Access to Political Goods Access to economic goods is easier to document, but we know that kin networks pervaded the political sphere as well. With glasnost' and perestroika, close circles of patronage brought regular allegations of Central Asian "corruption," especially on the pages of Moscow newspapers. 97 An article in Izvestiia described "those clan and family ties that harmed south Kazakhstan's economy and produced fertile soil for the corruption of a great many people," and how "patronage was bestowed increasingly openly and brazenly. More and more people with family, or at least 'hometown,' ties gathered in the republic capital. And there was nothing the stringpullers would not do for their own people. They provided them with titles, distinctions, and jobs."98 Pravda took a more didactic tone, instructing its readership that "relationships between friends or relatives must not be allowed to influence the work sphere ... Strict action must be taken against those who use their official positions to promote unsuitable working people and pro-

Two Faces of Soviet Power tect them from just punishment."99 An investigator sent by Moscow to examine abuses of power in Kazakhstan lamented that "if we took the path of instituting criminal proceedings against everyone involved in bribery, we could paralyze the work of a whole series of enterprises and organizations."loo These patterns reached the highest echelons of republican power. According to Nursultan Nazarbaev, the first president of independent Kazakhstan, "A narrow circle of those who had become close to the first person [Kunaev, First Party Secretary] settled practically all matters .... A person who was a part of the family ofD. A. Kunaev could decide the fate of another person: give him a promotion or an award, fire him, or give him an apartment."lOl This pattern would replicate itself in the mid and late 1990S under Nazarbaev, as chapter four illustrates. Were these ethnic networks, subethnic networks, or something else? Most analysts gloss the question, assimilating family and subethnic ties to higher-aggregate ethnic affiliations. They appear to assume that ethnicity was the most politically significant category in the Soviet period. 102 While there may be no analytic strategy that could adequately distinguish between sub ethnic and ethnic networks, especially decades after the fact, there is likewise no reason to assume that access networks were solely ethnic. To the contrary, as the patronage system became more entrenched after Stalin's death, both ethnic and subethnic identifications proved instrumental as means of access to scarce goods. By way of illustration: under Kunaev a slow Kazakhification of positions of power, influence, and prominence in political and social life occurred. This was not solely ethnification. Kunaev himself makes clear that to be a Kazakh implies a subethnic belonging: "Each person should know his pedigree [rodoslovnaia] ... [M]y predecessors were descended from Baidybek, a warrior [djigit] of the Elder Umbrella Clan. My closest genealogical tree looks as follows .... "103 The selection of Kazakhs for positions of power and influence occurred along subethnic lines. He denies this fact, claiming that "it is sufficient to look at a list of officially selected [nomenklatura] workers to be convinced that not even the mention of a privileging [vypiachivanie] on the basis of national, let along kin-tribal, principle existed."104 The public denial itself suggests a popular perception that clan patronage accompanied ethnic patronage.

THE FUNCTIONAL ADVANTAGES OF KINSHIP

To understand an identity, we must learn what types of support undergird its reproduction. Doing so not only helps to explain why identities persist (if they do), but also how the character of an identity division changes over time. The mechanism of identity reproduction leaves an imprint on the identity itself. The Soviet political economy of shortage reduced clan identity to its bare, functional advantages. Kinship connections were beneficial because they offered a ready cultural connection between access seekers and access providers, assisting those many ordinary individuals involved in the informal political economy. As detailed in chapter 1, kin-based clans are based not on visible markers that distinguish members from non-members, but rather on genealogical knowledge. Networks based on kinship are easier to conceal because such knowledge need not be made publicly known; these divisions are easily privatized. Most other types of attachment, by contrast, involve visible markers of identity and difference. More specifically, kinship is an advantage in situations where: 1. Access networks are illegal. The Soviet state sometimes tolerated underground networks, but they were always subject to prosecution. Because clan identities are concealable, participants in networks can more easily avoid surveillance from the state and from peers; 2. Barter is preferred to cash payment. Barter exchanges benefit from a high degree of trust between participants because it is not always possible to exchange physical goods in one' immediate transaction. Clan networks thrive on high degrees of trust; 3. Exchanges are delayed, not immediate. Given a stability of prices, personnel, and predictability of transactions (which were all hallmarks of the state socialist political economy), reciprocation was often diffuse. Again, clan networks thrive on the high degree of trust required for such diffuse transactions; 4. Exchanges are not of physical goods, but rather of information. As the state socialist political economy deepened from the 1960s through the 1980s, information about how to access key goods was almost as scarce as many of the goods themselves. Clan networks played the additional function of providing information.

Two Faces of Soviet Power These were the conditions under state socialism that made kinship advantageous as the basis for networks. They are present in all contexts by degree. By stigmatizing and criminalizing kinship, the Soviet state activated these functional advantages; it reduced clan relationships to them. lOs No longer the comprehensive wellspring of social and cultural identity that it had been in the past, it now served a narrower purpose as an underground means through which Central Asians navigated everyday life. And, since its advantages centered on the issue of goods distribution, it had become a centrally political phenomenon. Who gets what, when, and how-these were questions that critically involved clan networks. 106 The shift from paramount social identity to narrow political identity necessitates a changed analytic strategy for those studying late Soviet and post-Soviet clans. If clans could reasonably be understood as corporate bodies in the pre-Soviet steppe, Soviet rule reduced clan identity to its instrumental aspect. This becomes clear as we examine post-Soviet clan politics.

For all practical purposes Leninism is extinct as a teleological project, but its leftovers continue to affect the post-Leninist political cultures. - Vladimir Tismaneanu

THE DOMINANT PARADIGM FOR STUDYING THE TRANSFORMATION

of state socialist space in the 1990S came to be known, rather awkwardly, as "transitology." The approach was hopeful and optimistic about the prospects for "transitions" from state socialism to free markets and democratic institutions. Not surprisingly, transitologists harbored strong normative commitments about the need for positive change. l Some of the more nuanced analyses recognized that transitions would not everywhere proceed with the same speed and assume the same forms, but all transitologists focused on the ability of individual agents to create their own futures. If voluntarism was in the wind, it was welcomed. Sovietological studies had assumed quite the contrary: that Soviet political culture was inherently undemocratic and that perversions of the market and of representative government were inherent to the region. Transitology gave the impression that anything was possible, and, indeed, in some contexts the unexpected did occur. Mongolia established viable democratic institutions, Russia succeeded in institutionalizing major democratic change, and even Kyrgyzstan from Central Asia flirted with democratic institutions (before it "backslid" in the late 1990s), managing macroeconomic reform that launched it into the World Trade Organization. 2 Ever forward-looking in orientation, transitology had a tremendous

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blind spot. The legacies of Soviet rule and their significance in shaping political outcomes remained in shadow. The very language oftransitions presumed end points and implied teleologies; it could not give adequate expression to these legacies. It was a language that betrayed the assumption that old practices were being left behind, perhaps slowly, as elites went about the business of constructing free markets and democratic institutions. Such old practices and their effects on transition deserved examination only to the limited extent that they hindered preferred outcomes. Transitology routinely shunted such legacies to the margins of analysis. Normative preferences for markets and democratic politics aside, continuity is important to consider because it is a sociological fact. Like the former colonies of the Mrican continent, the ex-Soviet republics replicated many of the institutional practices of the pre-independence political order. As Beissinger and Young put it, "the texture of contemporary state ness in Mrican and Eurasia today embodies the coloniallimperial cloth from which the successor states were tailored."3 Throughout the former USSR, political practice bore striking resemblance to previous forms of behavior; relationships among political actors were perpetuated through habitus, even after the original bases for the relationships evaporated. 4 In Central Asia in particular, modern institutions were, and continue to be, a creation of the Soviet era, as statehood itself was introduced to the region in the twentieth century.5 Thus, state institutions were unlikely to assume something other than a Soviet cast. As Soviet rule receded, some successor states-notably the Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia-engineered dramatic breaks with the political practice of their Soviet past. In those contexts more than others, ethnic nationalists had already during the Soviet period mobilized broad public support for radical reforms and, eventually, independence. Post-Soviet practices in those contexts never left the Soviet legacy entirely behind, but they moved further and faster than did their counterparts in the remainder of ex-Soviet space. 6 Central Asia experienced the lowest degree of popular mobilization of any region as the Soviet state began to unrave1.7 Perhaps not surprisingly, the Soviet collapse brought not radical rupture to the states of the Central Asian region, but rather an unusual identity with past practices. Elite choices in the construction of political institutions were

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heavily saddled with institutional baggage from the Soviet period. PostSoviet leaders were hardly able to make entirely free decisions. 8 The passage of time allows us to locate a striking degree of continuity with the Soviet past. Such continuity is multifaceted and broad.9 This chapter focuses attention on two aspects of continuity that have particular consequences for clan politics: the shortage economy and the stigmatization of clan that drives kin networks underground. Even had there been a radical rupture with the Soviet period, the ways in which clan identities informed politics might have had some staying power. Social and political practices do not change immediately in the wake of institutional reform; one might expect clan politics in the 1990S to bear the imprint of Soviet mechanisms that sustained clan identities. Be that as it may, there was no such radical rupture with the Soviet past, so clan politics in the 1990S exhibited a core likeness with what we witnessed in the Soviet period itself.

CONTINUITY IN NATIONALITIES POLICY

In the previous chapter, I argued that Soviet nationalities policy succeeded in driving kin identities out of the public sphere, deeply stigmatizing clan belonging. Notwithstanding the neglect oflegacies in the literature on market and democratic transitions, this stigma continued in the post-Soviet period. Continuity was notable in several important senses: (1) ethnic categories were assumed to be the legitimate form of social organization and nationalities policy centered on harmonizing relations among ethnic groups; (2) supra-ethnic categories with questionable popular resonance were deployed in the attempt to harmonize interethnic relations; and (3) subethnic categories and practices were routinely stigmatized in public discourse. Like its Soviet-era predecessor, the post-Soviet Kazakhstani state framed debates about cultural pluralism around the interrelations among ethnic groups, or "nationalities." Westerners seized these categories, depicting post-Soviet states as "ethnocratic," or "nationalizing states."10 Indeed, the patterns were clear. Elites routinely justified an array of practices as stability enhancing, including efforts to shape patterns oflanguage use in favor of dominant cultural groups, to rewrite histories to emphasize cultural roots, to alter demographic balances to redress for Soviet-era migration, and to promote ethnic cadres. l l They involved:

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claims made in the name of a "core nation" or nationality, defined in ethnocultural terms, and sharply distinguished from the citizenry as a whole. The core nation is understood as the legitimate "owner" of the state, which is conceived as the state ofand fOT the core nation. Despite having "its own" state, however, the core nation is conceived as being in a weak cultural, economic, or demographic position within the state. This weak position-seen as a legacy of discrimination against the nation before it attained independence-is held to justify the "remedial" or "compensatory" project of using state power to promote the specific (and previously inadequately served) interests of the core nation.'2 This turn to ethnocracy began as an explicit rejection of Sovietera promises about interethnic harmony and the supposed benefits of assimilation. By the late Soviet period, ethnically defined elites had taken relatively empty slogans about "self-determination" of ethnonational groups and given them substance. Republican elites made meaningful the passports that had categorized ethnic belonging, the system of ethnic federalism that suggested the congruence of cultural and political boundaries, and the symbolic attention paid to ethnic languages, folklores, and histories.'3 But if this ethnocratic trend was clear, the Soviet legacy was more multifaceted than a focus on ethnicity would suggest. Soviet nationalities policy trod a fine line between the multi-ethnicity that defined society (and the concomitant ideology of "internationalism") and an emphasis on ethnic titularity (and its ideology of ethnopolitical entitlement and national self-determination). The tension between the two did not disappear with the Soviet collapse. The dilemma of how to reconcile ethnic diversity with particular privileges for the titular ethnic group was especially acute in Kazakhstan, where Kazakhs represented less than a majority in their "own" republic. The commingling of these theoretically irreconcilable principles-which I call "internationalism with an ethnic face" -persisted from the Soviet period. As it did, it continued to stigmatize clan belonging as backward, retrogressive, and something to avoid.

Eurasianism: Internationalism with an Ethnic Face One face of post-Soviet state discourse emphasized a vision of multiethnic harmony that reiterated Soviet-era categories of internation-

alism and Homo sovieticus. I4 Its central organizing theme was Eurasianism. President N azarbaev's notion of E urasianism was designed to show the geographic centrality of Kazakhstan and the multi-ethnic population that occupied its territory. Based loosely on the ideas of Soviet scholar Lev Gumiliev, this Eurasianism was a celebration of the continent's multicultural heritage and a vision that reserved a formative historical role for the Turkic peoples, of which ethnic Kazakhs are a part. I5 Nazarbaev viewed Eurasianism as an organic outgrowth of the territory, explaining that it was derived from our geographic position at the cross-roads in the Eurasian region. The process of globalization of world economic and political processes [sic 1 elevates this factor as a key one. Our ancestors as a part of a united family of Turkic peoples [narody 1used this important strategic factor to their advantage: along the legendary Silk Road a wide trading corridor between European and Asiatic countries was organized. Today, we are beginning to restore it in cooperation with other countries of our region and with the support of the world community. Of course, in the future the trading system, financial currents and migrations of people between Europe and Asia will grow. For this very reason, to say nothing about the many politically stabilizing factors, I issued forth and will develop the idea of Eurasianism [evraziistvo], which has, I am convinced, a strategic future. I6 While this Eurasianism came at some cost to both historical fact and the political and economic realities of post-Soviet Kazakhstan, Nazarbaev pressed onward. Central to its "strategic future" was the president's transfer of the capital from Almaty in the southeast to Astana (formerly Aqmola) in the north-central region. Official reasons for building a new capital included Almaty's proneness to seismic activity, its inauspicious location at the base of the Zailiiskii Alatau mountains that hampered urban growth, problems with air pollution, and proximity to China. In reality, the primary reason (until 1998 rarely recognized publicly by authorities) was the demographic predominance of ethnic Russians in the north and the possibility of separatism. A new capital represented an opportunity to create new loyal political elites and simultaneously keep tabs on the oblasts near the Russian border.I7

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Making his strategy visible, Nazarbaev orchestrated a televised spectacle of the official presentation of Astana to the world in June 1998 that exhibited central features of Eurasianism. Ethnic groups living in Kazakhstan performed short pieces of "traditional" dance, each in their own "national" costume. The grandstands that formed a backdrop were filled with participants (largely schoolchildren mobilized for the occasion) who, at the appointed moments, raised, turned, and shimmied appropriately colored square cards, in effect spelling out central terms in the internationalist discourse; "friendship" and "no nukes" were rendered in Kazakh, Russian, and English. The performances projected the connection between the diaspora communities of Kazakhstan, the diaspora culture, and the external homeland to which the diaspora was understood to belong. As Ukrainian dancers performed, the grandstands displayed the word "Kiev," and the television cameras honed in on Ukrainian president Kuchma, who was in attendance. This hearked back to Soviet-era strategies for highlighting the links assumed inherent between the ethnic group, the ethnic culture, and the ethnic territory. The most important dance came last, when a troupe of ethnic Kazakhs many times the size of previous troupes offered an extended routine. Modifying the homeland-based system of ethnic "representation" from the Soviet period, this new internationalism created "nationalcultural centers," which were to be "the organizational mechanisms for supporting and developing national traditions, cultures, and the original spirituality of the nations and national groups."18 In principle designed as the basic units of extraterritorial ethnic representation, they remained closely watched by a hypertrophic presidential apparatus. Proclaimed as evidence of state commitment to its minorities, in practice, ethnic representation reproduced the ambivalent relationship of minorities to the Kazakhstani state; as the leader of the Polish center in Almaty wrote in 1998, "Kazakhstan is my second fatherland,"19 a statement designed to show the multi-ethnic nature of Kazakhstan but that implied that the primary loyalty of nontitulars lay elsewhere. Visions of a unified Homo eurasiaticus could become reality only if the state attended to the "needs" of all its ethnic groups. Not unlike Soviet internationalism, which institutionalized ethnic attachments in an attempt to dissolve the boundaries between ethnic groups, the new internationalism vested ethnic representation (and the ostensible sat-

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isfaction of ethnic "needs") in these centers. In reality, only cultural and linguistic issues were raised. According to a member of the Ukrainian center, their mandate was to facilitate the development of Ukra inian language and culture. In return, they received meeting space, sponsorship of Ukrainian-language newspapers, funding for Sunday schools and performance ensembles, and exchange programs for select Ukrainian children to study in Ukraine. He added that fundingalways in peril-was certain to be cut dramatically, if not entirely, in the near future. 2o The actual operation of these centers belied notions of equal ethnic representation, instead varying by the nature of interstate ties. Those centers (the Kurdish and Uyghur) representing groups without an external homeland were subject to close state scrutiny, since the Kazakhstani elite sought to normalize interstate relations (with Turkey and China). For those centers that had a titular external homeland, the external state played a critical role. Thus, the Russian center's activities were strictly cultural, given that overtly political issues were potentially destabilizing. The German center, by contrast, was the focus of strong efforts by Germany to repatriate Kazakhstani Germans and grant them German citizenship.21 Finally, this Eurasianist vision of internationalism was directed to foreign audiences, as the elite deliberately cultivated an image of commitment to integration in international economic and political structures. On the economic front, Kazakhstan's orientation to market capitalism and foreign investment was trumpeted. Similarly, Nazarbaev's proposals for a "Eurasian Union" that would entail a unified customs zone and a single market for the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS, (ideals that were in some part recognition of what was de facto practice: states were at pains to control transborder flows of goods and capital) held international appeal. Likewise, Nazarbaev engaged international political structures through a flurry of high-profile diplomatic visits around the world. In such ways, the Eurasianistvision tapped Soviet-era notions of interethnic "harmony" and ascendant international norms about integrationist liberal markets and civic polities.

Ethnicity and Ethnic Redress Just as Soviet-era internationalism ultimately had a Russian face (holding a privileged position for ethnic Russians in the evolutionary

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march toward the "bright future"), post-Soviet Kazakhstani state ideology had a Kazakh face, singling out Kazakhs for linguistic, political, demographic, and cultural redress. One of the distinguishing patterns of redress in post-Soviet space was its widely recognized but extralegal nature. In Malaysia, the New Economic Policy instituted after the 1969 ethnic riots contained specific goals that found reflection in explicit preferences granted Bumiputras and Malays, a disproportionate number of whom lived in poverty. The intention was to improve the economic standing of these groups through affirmative-action policies in education, skills development, and the provision of credit,22 By contrast, in Kazakhstan, policies of affirmative action remained ad hoc and outside the law. The state elite, calling these processes "national-cultural revival"-a turn of phrase with seemingly neutral connotations that could apply to any of the "national" groups residing in Kazakhstan-actually singled out Kazakhs for redress in critical areas. Nazarbaev emphasized the importance of such a "revival" for social stability, stopping short of an explicit proclamation of affirmative-action policies, when he claimed that "the national revival ofKazakhs in concert with general democratic processes, observance of human rights, is an indispensable condition for the development of other nationalities on a basis of equal rights. Without meeting obstacles to its development, the Kazakh nation [natsiia 1, undoubtedly, will treat the interests and requests of other peoples with understanding and respect."23 Accordingly, the state elite strayed beyond the rhetoric of just and temporary compensation to hold a privileged and permanent, if still ambiguous, position for the titular group. Nazarbaev routinely pointed to the "integrating role" of the Kazakh people amidst the country's cultural diversity. One letter published in the official Kazakhstanskaia pravda in 1992 typified this outlook, asking rhetorically, "Is it necessary to say that Russia is the state for Russians, India for Indians [sic 1, France for the French, in the name of whom their countries were named?"24 Although Kazakhs were sometimes elevated as Orwellian "more equal pigs," what this special position entailed was left unspecified. Central to national-cultural revival was attention to matters oflanguage. 25 Given the profound Soviet-era incentives to learn Russian for professional development, many Kazakhs lacked adequate knowl-

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edge of Kazakh. Promoting Kazakh was therefore a state effort both to reverse a linguistic tide of Russification and to compensate those Kazakhs previously locked out of professional spheres for lack of proficiency in Russian. Mter rancorous debates and heightened interethnic tensions in the early part of the decade, a compromise was hammered out in 1996. Kazakh was to be the "state" language, while Russian was an "official language on a par with Kazakh."26 The language law placated the sides for the moment, but several parts of the document added layers of ambiguity. Central among them was the depiction that it was the "duty of every citizen" to learn the state language, "which is a most important factor in the consolidation of the people [narod] of Kazakhstan."27 The requirement that state officials learn Kazakh within a ten-year period was dropped,28 but the ill-defined distinction between "state" and "official" languages was one that might acquire different juridical content under changed circumstances. In addition to the declaration ofKazakh as the state language, Kazakhlanguage primary and secondary education was broadly promoted. According to official statistics, the number of monolingual Kazakhmedium secondary schools increased by about 28 percent in the period 1989-96, while the number of Russian-medium schools decreased by approximately 37 percent in the same period. A similar rise was witnessed in the rising proportion ofKazakh-medium secondary students, from 30.2 to 44.7 percent from 1986 to 1996, while the proportion of Russian-medium students declined from 67-3 to 52.2 percent. 29 It became possible to get a university education in the Kazakh language - not only in the humanities, where it had previously been available, but also in the increasingly popular specializations of law, economics, and business. From 1989 to 1996 in polytechnical education, the proportion of Kazakh-medium students increased from 8-4 to 21.8 percent. Between 1992 and 1996 in institutes of higher learning, the proportion of Kazakh-medium students rose from 22.1 to 30.9 percent. Kazakh-Ianguage media received consistent state subsidies, although data on their extent are not available. Erbol Shaimerdenov, director of the state Department for the Development of Languages, described the relative lack of demand for Kazakh-medium newspapers in an interview, saying "we still haven't created the need" for

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people to get their information in Kazakh. The task of his department . was to have Kazakh fulfill the functions of the "state" language through encouraging its widened use.3° In 1999 his department became centrally involved in the enforcement of the legal requirement that 50 percent of television broadcasts be conducted in Kazakh,31 a provision that was flouted even in predominantly Kazakh South Kazakhstan oblastY There was a wide divergence between the design of state strategies on language-use and their actual implementation,33 For example, while legal documents were required to be published in Kazakh and then translated into Russian, the usual sequence was the reverse, and the corps of translators was often inadequate for the job.34 As a result, a perceptible shift in state strategy on language redress became evident in 1998 with a new focus on those Kazakhs with poor facility in the language.3 5 Shaimerdenov suggested that the informal new department slogan would be "Maya Kazakh speak the state language with other Kazakhs," intimating that no one could expect non titular citizens of Kazakhstan to speak Kazakh if significant numbers of Kazakhs themselves refused to do so,36 Since llOn-Kazakhs were unlikely to be proficient in the Kazakh language, language preferences were a vehicle for the political promotion of ethnic Kazakhs-a second area for redress. By one account, during the period 1985 to 1994 (the years of the most marked change among ethnic groups in the governing apparatus), the percentage of non-Kazakhs in high-level state posts dropped from fifty to twentyfive.3 7 In South Kazakhstan oblast in 1998, the only non-Kazakhs in high-level office were those extremely few with a working knowledge of the Kazakh language.3 8 At the national level, the chair of both the lower (Mazhilis) and upper (Senat) houses of parliament, as well as the presidency, were open only to those with fluency in Kazakh (i.e., in practice, ethnic Kazakhs). As a result of these preferences, according to one study of the biographies of 320 political appointees and members of parliament, 70.9 percent were Kazakh, 23.4 percent were Slavic, and 5.6 percent were of other background.39 A third strategy for redress was demographic engineering. This was to be accomplished by encouraging immigration of ethnic Kazakhs from diaspora communities in Mongolia, Turkey, China, Iran, and Mghanistan. Designed as compensation for losses resulting from the

82 forced emigration and death from famine associated with collectivization and sedentarization of nomads in the 1920S and 1930S, the intention was to grant immigrants the material resources for beginning anew in their "homeland," as well as an ongoing stipend. 40 These state priorities were reflected in local scholarship. Historians took a special interest in the "historical fates" ofKazakhs-in-exile and a prominent demographer wrote a widely promoted series of books projecting the "natural" growth of the Kazakh population as in part a result of the massive repatriation campaign. 41 Demographic redress was critically tied to notions of self-determination. Topping the 50-percent mark was widely seen as tantamount to property restitution; after a long hiatus, the territory of Kazakhstan was being returned to ethnic Kazakhs.42 While no visible figure took a position against guaranteeing the rights of minority groups, many privately voiced satisfaction that "majority rule" (the central tenet of a crude democratic vision) would finally have an ethnic logic. 43 If the design of official policy was not necessarily to drive ethnic Russians from Kazakhstan, that was the effect, and a steady outflow that peaked in the mid-1990s continued into 2000. Although much unofficial movement was not reflected in statistics, official figures show that the net emigration of ethnic Russians was 123,777 in 1993; 251,934 in 1994; 157,462 in 1997; 124>494 in 1998; 73,289 in 1999; and 77,800 in 2000. A gap in the official record for 1995 and 1996 suggests that figures remained quite high in those years and that authorities sought to hide this embarrassing fact. 44 Ethnicity-based redress was finally reflected in state-led efforts to promote Kazakh culture in the official and semi-official press. This· trend was particularly marked in the first half of the 199os, when newspapers routinely devoted ample space to explaining ethnic traditions and covering Kazakh cultural events. In academia, virtually any topic that covered pre-Soviet history, depicted anti-Soviet or anti-imperial movements, or portrayed the massive suffering that Kazakhs historically endured, received blanket endorsement. According to several informants in the Institute of History and Ethnography, the institute's director, a powerful ally of President Nazarbaev, issued an order (instruktazh) to researchers to find the roots of Kazakh statehood in the Sak period (the first millennium BeE). This was a clear departure from established historiography that located such statehood in

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the mid-fifteenth century.45 On occasion, the drive to establish ethnic autochthony generated profound historiographic absurdities. 46 The state also spearheaded efforts to restore various architectural monuments deemed to be of historical value, projects for which it lacked funds. A Department of Historical-Cultural Legacy, created in 1993 and liquidated in 1995, led merely a formal existence, receiving almost nothing from central authorities to cover its mandate. When the building that housed it was privatized, the department ceased to exist. 47 Given funding limitations, the state effort was often confined to the pages of the press, where monuments of historical or religious significance were detailed and their tragic condition lamented. One regional paper demanded (to no apparent effect) that the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg (Russia) return to the Kazakh steppe a monument erected by Tamerlane (Amur Timur) after his conquest of the Golden Horde. 48 Another described how a mausoleum of a certain Abylgazi had been completely dismantled in the mid-1990s, presumably by someone interested in reusing the materials for another construction project. 49 The enormously important Yassaui mausoleum in the city of Turkestan (South Kazakhstan region), even with massive financial assistance from Turkey, was not finished in time for the 1000th anniversary scheduled for 1998. The celebration was delayed until 2000. Some cultural projects received generous state funding, like the "ethnocultural expeditions" carried out in 1998. Instructed to spotlight ethnic Kazakh cultural traditions, teams of scholars were dispatched to each of the fourteen oblasts to examine which sayings and proverbs, traditions, customs, and toponymns had persisted into the post-Soviet period. Funding issues aside, the effort was uneven, facing additional problems: a lack of Kazakh-Ianguage facility among researchers, a lack of experience conducting ethnographic fieldwork, and the "passive relations" oflocal authorities whose cooperation was necessary to identify sites and provide logistical support. 50 The practice of these research expeditions was also profoundly shaped by political imperatives-to provide a model of "genuine" Kazakhness that best conformed to images of pre-Soviet traditions. Although the research carried the generic name "ethnocultural," the exclusive focus was on Kazakhs. Research teams relied heavily on regional and local administrators (akims), whose instructions were to find predominantlyethnic Kazakh regions that had a comparatively well-preserved

mixture of traditional practicesY Thus, research ignored the many multi-ethnic regions in which the vast majority of Kazakhs residedY These expeditions were conducted as part of a grander state project celebrating the "Year of People's Unity and National History." Building on the imperatives of establishing a "historical consciousness" set forth in 1995,53 the year's stated objective was to "systematize all historical events and phenomena, revive historical memory and provide a spiritual cleansing. This is necessary in order deeply to recognize and better understand the many-centuries aspiration of the people to state independence, unity, freedom of spirit and human dignity."54 In practice, the project centered on the history of ethnic Kazakhs, with few efforts spared to demonstrate the validity of Kazakh claims to this territory. The exemplar was a prominent scholar and occasional speechwriter for Nazarbaev, Manash Qozybaev. An erstwhile expert on Communist Party history who effected a seamless transition to promoting ethnic Kazakh history, Qozybaev regularly attempted to assimilate to Kazakhs many of the military, political, and scholarly achievements of all Turkic peoples, as well as of Asia more generally.

Viewing Clans as Retrogressive Internationalism with an ethnic face contained principles that were in tension with one another. To the extent that the polity was internationalist, it embraced what Western scholars label "civic" principles; that is, ethnicity and cultural background were de-emphasized and common residence in the territory of Kazakhstan was emphasized. To the extent that the state pursued its ethnic face, it promoted Kazakhs to compensate for their suffering during the Soviet period. Both principles, however, privileged high-aggregate identity categories and propagated further the Soviet-era stigma about subethnic clan divisions. While the Soviet version of modernization was discredited with the collapse of the Soviet state, identity discourse in the post-Soviet period differed strikingly little from its Soviet-era predecessor. At its heart was a high modernism that held no legitimate place for subethnic identities, as I detail more fully in chapter 6. CONTINUITY IN POLITICAL ECONOMY

The post-Soviet elite claimed to embark on massive economic and political reform, and change did come. Particularly in macroeconomic

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policy, there was a wholesale shift to a neoliberal market orientation. It is noteworthy, however, that there was substantial continuity in personnel from the Soviet period into the 1990S; these were the very same apparatchiks who had been socialized to demonstrate publicly their commitment to normatively appealing principles while privately manifesting dexterity in the informal mechanisms of a corrupt polity. Their modus operandi was a Soviet-era product. As chapter 3 examined, the Soviet command system had created incentives for the maintenance of hierarchical networks of distribution. Since the system was largely based on endemic shortages, elaborate networks for ordinary people to gain access to scarce commodities (consumer goods, access to power, inputs for state enterprises) were the useful tools of the enterprising citizen-subject. Kinship-rich societies were thus the site of distribution networks with a distinctive genealogical outline. In central ways, post-Soviet Kazakhstan in the 1990S reproduced these patterns, preserving hierarchies in political and economic life. Appearances, of course, were deliberately cultivated to the contrary. President Nazarbaev widely used the term "democratization," deploying it to cloak moves away from political openness. For example, in late 1998 the president moved to hold early presidential elections in January 1999 in a series of choreographed events in which the parliament "pressured" the president into "reluctantly" heeding the "democratic" call for the early vote. In fact, this was merely a drama designed to lend legitimacy to what was essentially an extraconstitutional decision, by suggesting that it had emerged from parliamentary "representatives," themselves ostensibly elected by a popular vote. 55 Elections, both to parliament and the presidency, were marred by significant irregularities. Parliamentary candidates who supported the president and his program received the financial and political support of the state apparatus, while alternative candidates were routinely harassed. Those with emerging independent power bases became the particular targets of state-led campaigns. Thus, former prime minister Akezhan Kazhegel'din, whose personal wealth was estimated in the millions, was forced into exile in 1998 on charges of tax evasion that were clearly politically motivated. He had earlier been disqualified from competing in the 1999 presidential elections on a cleverly crafted technicality. Kazhegel'din's Republican People's Party, which was to field candidates for the fall 1999 parliamentary elections,

86 was the object of intense state scrutiny, and its official registration was delayed. Ethnic Russian Piotr Svoik was beaten by unidentified assailants at the height of the political power of the alternative Citizen (Azamat) movement in December 1997. The pattern, which went far beyond these few examples, is that the regime periodically intimidated the members of a diverse opposition and systematically rewarded fealty to the current leadership. This prompted the Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to urge authorities to scrap the 1999 presidential contest, a call that fell on deaf ears. 56 The run-up to the parliamentary elections scheduled for September and October 1999 departed little from previous campaigns. According to 1998 amendments to the election laws, parliamentary seats would be allocated by a combination of proportional representation from party lists and single-member district plurality seats, but this did not affect the shape of prevote competition. Pro-Nazarbaev parties (Fatherland and the Civic Party) were easily registered and given strong state backing, while alternative parties (Republican People's Party, Citizen, Progress [Orleu], Republic, the Communist Party, and the Association of Slavic and Russian Organizations) encountered insufficient campaign time, difficulties with registration, more limited media access, as well as internal divisions. Given these conditions, in addition to anticipated problems with fraud and reporting at the polls, a pro-president parliament was the result, as usual. Once elected, these bodies had little independent authority. By the 1995 Constitution, presidential decrees had the force oflaw. Impeaching the president required a three-fourths vote of both houses, and the president selected seven of the Senat's forty-seven members. There was no binding power to no-confidence votes, and while parliament had the right to disagree with any proposed decree or legislation, the president could dissolve the body if it voted no-confidence or twice refused the presidential recommendation for prime minister, as well as under conditions of any ill-defined "political crisis" between state organs. 57 Constitutional changes initiated with great fanfare under a banner of "democratization" in October 1998 had the central effect oflengthening the terms in office, from five to seven years for the president, from five to six for the Senat, and from four to five for the Mazhilis; they did not alter the concentration of power. As highlighted above, an unelected, publicly unaccountable, and extraconstitutional People's Assembly was the occasional agent of

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Nazarbaev-Ied initiatives. The Assembly was depicted as representing popular interests, defined ethnically through the national-cultural centers, but this was not its political role. In 1995, after a power struggle that led Nazarbaev to dissolve the parliament under the pretext of upholding constitutionality, the Assembly, a body of hand-picked supporters of the president, was the forum in which a new constitution was developed. 58 The Assembly's efforts reached ordinary people as well. For example, in June 1997 what initially seemed to be an open student discussion on interethnic relations at a prominent local institute in Almaty turned out to be a thinly veiled propaganda campaign organized by members of the Assembly.59 The more attention the Assembly received in the official press, the more suspicions were heightened that some extraordinary presidential move was imminent, leading the political opposition to argue that the body was an "instrument" of the president. 60 Thus, the general pattern since 1991 was the entrenchment of N azarbaev's power. The downsizing of the state apparatus served as an opportunity for power consolidation. 61 Entire agencies and state committees were shifted to direct subordination to presidential authority.62 The large public-sector employer Academy of Sciences was dissolved in 1999, its various institutes placed under the direct control of the Ministry of Science. The transfer of the capital from Almaty to Astana was a further chance to keep close tabs on those actors whose offices were moved and to shut down the operations of others. 63 All major policies were created in top-down fashion, with the president centrally involved. Civil service reform went nowhere until the president clearly signaled his active support in 1998.64 In 2002 a landtenure reform effort stemmed directly from presidential initiatives. Moreover, the strategic vision for the prosperous resource-extraction industries (primarily oil and minerals) was centered on the preferences of the president. 65 While reserving decisive control over such decisions, the president insulated himself from eventual criticism by appearing to delegate responsibilities to others. An August 1999 scandal in which shipments of MIG fighters were stopped en route from Kazakhstan to their purchasers in North Korea was thus depicted as the independent initiative of a rogue group of state officials, about which the president knew nothing. 66 Similarly, the members of the presidential entourage opened Swiss bank accounts with enormous bribes from foreign investors; this created the impression that the pres-

88 ident had himself not personally benefited, even if the indictment of American businessmen in U.S. federal courts in 2003 on charges of supplying the bribes created the opposite impression. The president sat atop a relatively effective vertical structure, widely referred to as the prezidentskaia vertikal'. He appointed the governors (akims) to each of fourteen oblasts, as well as the cities of Astana and Almaty. Each governor was responsible for making a whole host of appointments at the regional level that mirrored the structure of republic-wide agencies. Beneath these regional governors were the city and district (raion) administrators (also called akims), who were in turn responsible to their superiors. Because of this essentially nested structure, frequent turnover of akims and their appointees served to prevent the emergence of alternative power bases. This was critically important, since the tendency was for local and regional authorities to consolidate authority through patron-client relations. According to the 1995 Constitution, a degree of self-administration was reserved to the regional and local level in the form of an elected body (maslikhat). The reality was quite different, with local administrative authorities (akimats, administrations of the akim) given priority in all relations at the local level. 67 The maslikhats could make budget recommendations, but central authorities, through their akimats, were under no obligation to consider them. Moreover, local akimats had broad authority to issue charters to businesses and organizations under state auspices and to register private enterprises. 68 As the press focused on the local power of these administrators, members of the opposition voiced increasingly frequent calls, such as that by members of the Citizen movement, for the akim to become an elected post. The president made clear that he refused to do so. If the consolidation of presidential power was clear on most counts, there was initially considerable liberalization in the area of press freedoms. Most notable were the relatively free information flows on economic trends and opportunities. Privately owned business-oriented newspapers enjoyed favorable relations with the regime. Exchange rates, investment forecasts, and the activities of a nascent stock exchange were widely publicized, and even the shock from the 1998 Russian financial collapse did not alter the regime's strategy in this regard. Media with a political bent also enjoyed a modicum of editorial freedom, especially relative to those in neighboring Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. 69 The extremely popular tabloid weekly Karavan,

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with an independent resource base, was especially bold in its criticisms of political developments, but even it came under state scrutiny in 1998 for articles that raised provocative questions about the shape of interethnic relations)O Papers such as Vremia po Grinvichu, XXI vek, and Dat were all the target of inquiries by the Tax Police, as well as the victims of more run-of-the-mill forms of physical intimidation. Dat, the only nationwide oppositionist Kazakh-language newspaper, published merely for a few months in 1998, an indication that the regime found the prospect of Kazakh speakers turning against the establishment an unacceptable political possibility that required immediate action)! In general, as long as the media did not implicate the president directly-as did Sergei Duvanov in 2002 when he reported on allegations of presidential corruption and subsequently was arrested and tried -critical stances were allowed. But periodic instances of state intimidation created the restraint of self-censorship. Just as the post-Soviet polity (in spite of reforms) continued to limit public access to the policy-making process, the economy (in spite of notable changes) retained a vertical and hierarchical structure. To be sure, the economy looked much different with a virtual explosion of inexpensive consumer goods. Open-air markets-first in Almaty, then in other urban centers-were flooded with cheaply imported consumer wares, even if their poor quality was widely rued. Flea markets and swap meets (barakholki) in Almaty, in particular, sprawled for miles at the city limits, suggesting that they filled a genuine market need, and many residents reported spending countless hours on public transportation seeking the bargains these places offered. The chaotic scenes most of them produced were that of an unregulated market selling wares produced almost exclusively outside of Kazakhstan. Poverty was widespread, and massive unemployment and underemployment, a downturn in industrial production, and high inflation kept much business in these informal barakholki, rather than in the formal storefronts. The jobless rate rose in the mid-1990s; although official statistics reported only a 5.6 percent rate for 1996, much unemployment was hidden, as registration of the jobless was quite uneven. 72 Industrial production fell to a low in 1995 as many factories stood idle, and a very slow recovery in export-oriented sectors ran up against low world prices in 1997-98. Inflation reached near-catastrophic levels in 1994-95, and after a relative stabilization of the new Kazakhstani currency, tenge, in 1997, the Russian financial collapse sent prices up

again in 1998. The currency again stabilized in the late 1990S and into the first years of the following decade, as a result of fiscal austerity that undermined the population's social safety net. The consequence was that ordinary citizens lacked the resources to access many of the goods now theoretically available. As Werner has described and as chapter 7 highlights, many Kazakhstanis resorted to their subethnic connections for access to economic goods rather than engaging market mechanisms. 73 Likewise, a weak banking system continued to limit the availability of credit. 74 While official statistics report that overall credit investments in Kazakhstan totaled almost $950 million in 1998,75 the data do not discriminate between foreign-owned banks operating in the country and Kazakhstani banks, nor is there information on recipients. Indications are that credit was not extended to most ordinary Kazakhstanis. A loudly proclaimed effort to meet this need by extending microcredit of $400 encountered myriad problems of administration, coordination, and resources. Various informants in South Kazakhstan oblast, for example, laughed off the program as a conceptually attractive but practically stillborn project. 76 Moreover, privatization ushered in a massive flow of foreign direct investment into extracting the vast oil and mineral resources ofKazakhstan that generated growth in these sectors, but most Kazakhstanis received little tangible benefit from these operations. As in the Russian Federation, there were many questions about the role of the former nomenklatura and the fairness of state-held auctions and competitions. Many of the jobs created by foreign multinational corporations were filled by contract workers from Russia or Turkey, who were declared more qualified. The city of Atyrau, for example, which is near Tengiz, the most productive of Kazakhstan's oil fields, continued to be mired in poverty; most local residents were not even allowed onto the premises that Chevron controlled, let alone employed there. 77 This limited access to generated wealth followed the pattern of other hydrocarbon-rich states.78 Even assuming the monumental political will to change this equity problem, the higher exchange rate sustained by such operations made other forms of investment in Kazakhstan all the more expensive. The continuity examined here is meant to highlight factors not normally illuminated through transitological approaches. It suggests that

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while the visual transformations of places like Almaty from a sleepy provincial town to a capital-rich financial center for all of Central Asia were real, the depth of the changes should not be assumed. Political and economic structures throughout the 1990S still rewarded those with privileged access and, in this sense, belied the public facade of open politics and markets that the regime attempted to propagate. As during the Soviet period, the result was that clan networks continued to be vibrant and important, well after the demise of the Soviet state itself.

PART

Two

Tke Po (itLc"-( D3"-"-HLic of 1"-fOl"'HL"-( Tie.\

5

What we can understand of something depends on how we think our way into it in the first place. - Katherine Verdery

1N THE 1990S THE STRUCTURE OF ACCESS TO POLITICAL AND economic goods was strikingly similar to that of the Soviet period, and this legacy continued to fuel clan politics. Unlike the Soviet period, however, when clan politics remained subordinated to other highstakes struggles, in post-Soviet Central Asia clan conflict flourished. The state-building and nation-building efforts of newly independent Kazakhstan now included intense competition for control of the state, and, consequently, for resources that were increasingly valuable on international markets. Jockeying among kinship-based groups was apparent, although its specifics were often shrouded in secrecy. As one observer noted, subethnic politics was like watching bulldogs fight under a carpet; the outlines of this struggle became clear in the event that one combatant emerged temporarily, only to return to the fight. l Given shifting relationships and highly imperfect information, the contours of this clan competition are not always easy to establish. 2 It is nonetheless worth taking a look at the empirical record to discern patterns. This chapter pays particular attention to the background of the political and economic elite to evaluate the widespread assertion (by journalists both in Central Asia and abroad) that President Nursultan Nazarbaev's clan-based network dominated political and economic life in the 1990S. I will show that Nazarbaev privileged his umbrella clan and extended family, but he also sought to avoid a fundamental imbalance in the relative power of the three umbrella clans. Thus, the politics of clan networks was deeply etched into post-Soviet real95

ity, but not in the ways that many analysts described them. Clan conflict was vibrant, but it stopped short of the "social closure" that Weber describes as typical of group relations. That is, one clan group did not seek total exclusion of other clan groupings} CLAN NETWORKS IN CONFLICT

Students of informal politics often find it useful to make a series of assumptions about their subject of study. Central among them is the notion that every informal relationship is dyadic in nature; that is, it involves relations between two (and only two) actors, and this relationship may be described for its durability, issue coverage, and exclusivity. A second central assumption is that such informal relationships involve an exchange of goods; that is, things of value move (often in both directions) between the two actors. A third premise is that this exchange between actors occurs according to some notion of what is considered "rational" for each actor; that is, each party is assumed to benefit from a relationship that otherwise has no reason to exist. The picture that these assumptions paint is that individuals ensnared in informal relationships are scarcely part of larger societal wholes. They are not the members of groups understood in some corporate sense; rather, they are individuals whose political interactions may be usefully reduced to the rational exchange of goods with one another.4 Though this tripartite premise is useful to tease out theoretical propositions based on the rationality assumption, do these assumptions make empirical sense with regard to the concrete contexts in which real-life political competition occurs? After all, there is no logical reason to assume a priori that individuals are parts of dyadic relationships (rather than N-sized groups of people with whom they have little face-to-face contact), exchange goods (rather than play social roles, for example), and exhibit goal-seeking, rational behavior (rather than behave in ways to which they are habituated).5 To be most useful, our assumptions should line up neatly with the empirical contexts that we study. This chapter suggests that, for contextual reasons rather than logically deduced ones, these three premises do make sense in the study of clan politics in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. Because of the Soviet experience, they are empirically defensible. First, Soviet rule deprived clan

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groupings of their cultural content. Clans were no longer the corporately defined kin groups that dealt with a wide array of cultural, social, and political matters. In the post-Soviet period, individuals used kin networks often without imagining clan as a coherent group. I move from a Durkheimian, group-centered perspective on clans to a Weberian, individual-based one for this reason. Second, the Soviet period limited kinship to particular social niches associated with gaining access to scarce goods. Thus, clan emerged as distinctly political, by becoming ensnared with questions of distribution and exchange. Third and related, clan became associated with goal-seeking behavior. It was increasingly invoked when one had a goal in mind. The language of networks (rather than groups) is particularly appropriate at this juncture. Individuals involved in goods acquisition create networks, since individuals acting alone hardly reap great rewards. Networks involve greater fluidity and less exclusivity of relationships than do groups. One network necessarily overlaps with others; competing networks may even occasionally have members in common. Some networks operate actively for the acquisition or exchange of a particular kind of good; other networks are activated to procure or trade other types of good. Some networks lie dormant for years, as if awaiting the circumstances in which their content proves useful, while other networks remain actively useful. Still other networks may succumb to centrifugal pressures and dissolve. The conflict of clan networks has distinguishing features. First, I have suggested that the concealable nature of clan ties makes them an asset under a shortage economy. Given shortage, clan ties are therefore more likely to survive to animate access networks. Concealability makes clan more likely to survive, but it is the multilevel nature of clan divisions that lends them an unusual political dynamic. Kinship is a unique basis for identity politics to the extent that it is scaled at multiple levels simultaneously. This is clearest with the former nomads of Central Asia, among whom an individual could be the member of a small kin-based aggregate of one hundred people, which in turn was a subunit in a larger aggregate of one thousand people. This larger aggregate could be a subunit in a still-larger aggregate of ten thousand members, and so on. With ethnicity, an individual often feels compelled to choose (if a choice is in the offing); either she is a member of the in-group or a member of the out-group. Gray areas are usually excluded from ethnic categories, perhaps in

the drive to preserve an elusive purity of in-group identity. This is where Barth's understanding of ethnicity as boundary-keeping and Douglas's notions of ritual purity coincide. 6 Clan is different; any two human beings can be described as related to each other through kinship. On such a conceptual map, the degree of kin closeness varies, but a blood connection is always understood to be present. As a result, clan politics is always scaled at multiple levels and kinship networks are activated in differently scaled contexts at different contextual moments.

CLAN COMPETITION IN THE 1990S

Scaled at multiple levels, clan politics in the 1990S played itself out differently at different levels of analysis) First, at the republic-wide level, the regime tolerated and itself used patron-client ties along subethnic lines, as patterns of political appointments suggest. While some effort was made to ensure a balance of umbrella clan interests, the presidential family nonetheless disproportionately benefited from umbrella clan politics. At the oblast level, the regime attempted to undermine the efforts of clan patronage networks to create regional power bases that might challenge the Elder Umbrella Clan's control of the state. At the district level, lower-aggregate clan divisions became relatively more important, as many locales were the site of umbrella clan homogeneity that rendered lower-aggregate differences all the more politically salient.

Republic-Wide Competition As chapter 2 described, the Elder Umbrella Clan traditionally inhabited south and southeastern Kazakhstan, while the Middle Umbrella Clan dominated the north and northeast-areas that now largely abut the Russian Federation-and the Younger Umbrella Clan was most powerful in the western reaches, especially along the Caspian Sea. At the end of Soviet rule, Younger Clan Kazakhs were relatively marginalized from distant Almaty, the Middle Clan dominated technical professions with their higher degree of Russi fie ation, and the Elder Clan remained politically predominant, given its proximity to Almaty. In the post-Soviet period Nazarbaev continued the general, republic-wide patronage practices of Dinmukhammed Kunaev, long-time

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Soviet-era Communist Party First Secretary in Kazakhstan and mentor to Nazarbaev, by propelling members of the Elder Umbrella Clan (to which Nazarbaev belongs) into the ruling elite. Nurtai Abykaev (the president's closest advisor), Akhmetzhan Esimov (deputy prime minister from 1996 to 1998, chair of the president's administration from mid-1998), Al'nur Musaev (director of the Committee on National Security, successor to the KGB), Kasymzhomart Tokaev (Minister of Foreign Affairs), Mukhtar Abliazov (Minister ofEnergy, Industry, and Trade), Omirbek Baigel'di (chair of the Senat), and Altynbek Sarsenbaev (director of the National Agency on Press Affairs and Mass Information) were some of the most prominent Elder Clan Kazakhs under Nazarbaev in the late 1990S. The dominance of the Elder Umbrella Clan among the top elite helped to consolidate the power of Nazarbaev and his kin. From the mid-1990s, especially with the introduction of mass privatization and the opening of Kazakhstan to large-scale foreign direct investment, the political reach of members ofNazarbaev's family was dramatically enhanced. Most significant were the increasingly close ties between Rakhat Aliev, the director of the Tax Police who also had an interest in oil development in the Caspian area, and the president, whose daughter Dariga was Aliev's wife. In 1998, private conversations and the occasional bold publication drew parallels between the dominance of the Suharto family in Indonesia and that of Nazarbaev and his kin in Kazakhstan - an increasingly apt comparison. If the Elder Umbrella Clan dominated at the top, patterns in the broader state apparatus were more complex, as an examination of more than 480 members of the political and economic elite reveals. A database was compiled from the leading reference guide to the elite. s Elite birthplaces were taken as an indicator of umbrella clan background; thus, this was a compendium of information on umbrella clan composition of the broader apparatus. Of the 481 republic-level appointments evaluated, 218 were rural-born Kazakhs, 141 were urban-born Kazakhs, and 122 were non-Kazakhs (table 5.1). For rural-born Kazakhs, umbrella clan background was discerned by referencing rural birthplace to patterns of clan settlement. The umbrella clan of urban-born Kazakhs could not be reliably discerned, given Soviet-era migration to urban areas, as well as the practice of assigning young cadres to jobs outside their birth areas. Non-Kazakhs have no clan background. 9

T...Lk).l Composition of Elite (1997,2001) Number

%of Total

%of Total Rural-Born Kazakhs

rural-born, Younger

25

5.2

U.5

rural-born, Middle

84

17.5

38.5

rural-born, Elder

83

17.3

38.l

rural-born Kazakh, clan background unclear

26

5.4

11.9

urban-born Kazakh

141

29.3

*

non-Kazakh

122

25.4

*

TOTAL

481

Background

100

T...Lk ).z. Umbrella Clan Background of Rural-Born Elite (1997,2001) Background

%of Rural-Born Kazakh Elite

Estimated %of Populationa

Younger

13.0

33.96

Middle

43.8

41.24

Elder

43.2

24.63

a Data on overall population are from estimates presented in Cynthia Werner, "The Significance of Tribal Identities in the Daily Life of Rural Kazaks in South Kazakhstan" (paper presented at the conference of the Association for the Study of Nationalities, Columbia University, New York, 24-26 April 1997).

Among rural Kazakhs in the elite, there was a numerical predominance of the Middle Umbrella Clan, with the Elder Umbrella Clan not far behind. This is not surprising, given that education levels correspond to more Russified milieus, from which Middle Clan Kazakhs generally come. The Elder Umbrella Clan dominance of power structures was less complete than often believed, perhaps for this reason. The Younger Umbrella Clan was the big loser in the area of cadre promotion. This, too, can be seen as a Soviet legacy, given the vast distances between Younger Umbrella Clan territory and Almatyand the fact that the extractive industries prominent in Younger Clan territory were structured by the Soviets to deal directly with Moscow,

Cian Conflict

101

rather than through Almaty as an intermediary. The result was lesser representation for these Kazakhs. The patterns are less striking, but still noteworthy, if one compares the umbrella clan breakdown in the elite to the estimated breakdown of umbrella clan in the population overall (table 5.2).10 As with the raw numbers, there is an overrepresentation of the Elder and Middle Umbrella Clans, with a distinct underrepresentation of the Younger Umbrella Clan. Because Middle Clan Kazakhs were disproportionately educated and linguistically Russified (compared to other Kazakhs), they enjoyed a prominent position in the political elite at the end of Soviet rule, notwithstanding Kunaev's attempts to weaken the clan's position. I I This translated quickly into bargaining leverage vis-a-vis the emerging regime ofNazarbaev. Specifically, the threat of separatism in the northern abiasts worked to the Middle Clan's benefit. The regime feared an alliance between these more Russified Kazakhs and ethnic Russians who faced a choice of exit (separatism) or loyalty (political quiescence). Middle Clan Kazakhs were themselves not considering separatism, but the regime sought to retain the loyalty of Middle Clan Kazakhs as a hedge against separatism in the region. Especially from 1993 to 1995, the northern abiasts were the sites of various attempts to question the integrity of the new state. In Russia, a widely respected author called for the incorporation of certain northern regions into the Russian Federation, dramatically heightening tensions along a vast borderland. 12 On the Kazakhstani side, Cossack groups whose political identification leaned toward Russia agitated for cultural and political autonomy. The country's cultural mix was widely viewed as an ethnic tinderbox. 13 By the late 1990S, this wave of escalated tensions had subsided through a combination oflegal guarantees, state coercion, and symbolic politics. 14 Securing the loyalty of Middle Clan Kazakhs was critical in this period. This is the best explanation for the selection as prime minister of, first, an ethnic Slav (Sergei Tereshchenko, 1992-94), then a Middle Clan Kazakh (Akezhan Kazhegel'din, 1994-97)' Through such top elite appointments, patronage along umbrella clan lines was a strategic concession to forge loyalty to the new state structures in a period of high uncertainty. Such an alliance is visible in the broader elite as well. This occurred, however, with some lag after the appointment of prominent

Middle Clan Kazakhs like Kazhegel'din. Patronage networks are not mobilized instantly when top-level appointments occur; new patterns in personnel appear only gradually, as positions open through retirements, firings, and political maneuverings. It takes some time for changes in the central elite to affect personnel appointments in the wider elite. Table 5.3 takes a deeper look at the elite background and relates it to the president's estimated degree of influence. The table shows that there was no alliance yet visible between the Elder and Middle Umbrella Clans. In 1997 a member of the Younger Umbrella Clan was no less likely than a member of the other clans to be selected for a post over which the president had high influence. The Younger Umbrella Clan was underrepresented in general in the elite (table 5.2, above), but a Younger Clan Kazakh in the elite assumed the same access to power as did his other Kazakh counterparts.

T,.J,k 5.} Absence of Elder-Middle Umbrella Clan Alliance (1997) Estimated Degree ofPresident's Influence on Post

%of Elder-Middle Elite Occupying ...

%of Younger Elite

low

18.!

24.0

medium

46.4

44.0

high

35.5

32.0

Occupying ...

Note: A simple statistical test shows that there is little chance of a significant difference in the distribution of posts between the Younger and Elder-Middle Umbrella Clans. X' = .510 (dJ. = 2), p = 0.775, N = 191.

The situation had changed appreciably through patronage politics by 2001. An emerging source of Middle Umbrella Clan patronage was the relocation of the capital city from Almaty to Astana in late 1997, which accorded Middle Clan Kazakhs greater influence over personnel appointments. Table 5-4 shows that if one was from either the Middle or Elder Clans in 2001, she or he was much more likely to assume a post with high access to power than if one was from the Younger Clan. The alliance established between the Middle and Elder Clans in the middle 1990S had trickled down to the broader elite by 2001. Notably, the position of the Middle and Elder

Clan Conflict Clans, taken individually, was weaker than when we consider it as an alliance.

TcJ,k 5·4 Presence of Elder-Middle Umbrella Clan Alliance, 2001 Estimated Degree ofPresident's Influence on Post

%ofElder-Middle Elite Occupying ...

%ofYounger Elite Occupying ...

low

8.4

24.0

medium

51.8

48.0

high

39.8

28.0

Note: A simple statistical test shows an extremely high probability of a significant difference in the distribution of posts between the Younger and Elder-Middle Umbrella Clans. X' = 5.875 (d.f. = 2), p = 0.053, N = 191.

By the late 1990S, the strategic situation for umbrella clan politics had changed. The Russian population dwindled due to out-migration; those who remained were disproportionately elderly and politically quiescent. Separatist sentiment was rarely palpable, notwithstanding an apparent attempt by Russian separatists to seize the regional governor's administrative buildings inOskemen in 1999. The new challenge came from a source exogenous to clan politics. Gas and oil extraction in western Kazakhstan began to attract the attention of international actors, as well as that of the state elite. But the development of a resource base quite distant from Almaty, in the stronghold of the Younger Umbrella Clan, begged vigilance. The regime succeeded in steering all major investment deals through Almaty (and later, Astana), to prevent any end-around attempts by local Younger Umbrella Clan authorities. Moreover, Prime Minister Kazhegel'din was replaced in 1997 by Nurlan Balgimbaev, from the Younger Umbrella Clan and until then the president of the state oil company, Kazakhoil. One might expect the representation of the Younger Umbrella Clan to improve in the elite in subsequent years.

Regional and Local Competition The politics of umbrella clan at the republican level ran up against the politics of regionalisms at the oblast level. Preventing regionalism was a central political concern of the 1990S, as the regime sought

to preclude subethnic networks from finding explicit territorial expression. In 1997 a consolidation of administrative units reduced the number of oblasts from nineteen to fourteen. While this was officially described as an attempt to reduce redundancy in state services and to streamline their provision, the evidence suggests that the logic of the changes was in part to prevent umbrella clan-based regionalisms. Proposals for an administrative union of Younger Umbrella Clandominated oblasts (such as Atyrau and Mangystau, which had been often forwarded) were deemed too threatening, as such groupings would have created a bloc based on the Younger Clan. The Younger Clan enjoyed both a tradition of defying state authority and simultaneously a recent boost to its economic position. The ingredients for separatist sentiment appeared ripe. 15 Administrative units were combined only in those cases where doing so would not strengthen the Younger Clan. If Nazarbaev had a particular fear of Younger Umbrella Clan regionalist movements, he appears to have feared regionalisms more generally. He rotated oblast akims frequently, rewarding those who were particularly loyal and relocating those who appeared to challenge his central control. From 1991 to 2000, the average tenure for these akims was 23.5 months, after which most were reassigned to high-level positions (other akim positions, ministry posts, seats in the legislature) or became successful in private business. 16 Thus, Nazarbaev created a core, circulating elite that benefited from his patronage. Moreover, turnover was largely the same across the whole country. The lowest turnover (three akims served during the period) occurred in West Kazakhstan oblast; the highest (six akims served) occurred in East Kazakhstan oblast and Mangystau. Through this rotation, Nazarbaev sought to undermine regionalisms that could compete with the power of the center, not to mention his personal power, appearances of decentralization notwithstanding. 17 Those akims who enjoyed genuine regional popularity (and thereby were perceived as threatening) were dealt with harshly, as was Galimzhan Zhakiyanov of Pavlodar oblast in 2002. These potential political rivals were not angels, as many of them had personally benefited from their positions in the past. Thus, material that would compromise their reputations and justify their downfall was never hard to find. But even those who were relatively clean could be intimidated into submission by a legal system that took its orders from central author-

Clan Conflict ities. Thus, a prominent opposition journalist in 2002 first was beaten by "unknown assailants" and several months later arrested (on the eve of a 2002 trip to the United States to speak with human rights groups) for ostensibly raping a fourteen-year-old girP8 Those who would not partake of Nazarbaev's system of spoils were dealt with harshly. While rotating personnel was among Nazarbaev's political tools, clan was still operative. At the oblast level, lower-aggregate divisions became increasingly salient. In 1997-98, informants contended that akims tended to be from the clan dominant in the region. Most found it hard to imagine a situation in which, for example, the akim of South Kazakhstan region could be a non-Dulat, or the akim of Atyrau region could be a non-Zhetiru. When the akim of a region was not from the dominant clan, his legitimacy could be called into question. Much depended on his ability to procure goods from the center. However, his behavior was scrutinized thoroughly and any evidence that his performance lagged was immediately attributed to his being a clan outsider. 19 Once appointed, oblast governors operated with a striking degree of autonomy, hiring and firing lower-level administrators in subordinate akimats often without legal justification?O In many instances, state administrators allocated resources to clients in open and brazen ways. One informant illustrated how the former akim of the city of Atyrau pressed the city to issue a hard-to-get license to a local entrepreneur to open a bazaar in a prominent and profitable location. Because of the akim's intervention in the licensing process, this man became a quite successful entrepreneur at a time when poverty was widespread in Atyrau. 21 In the context of economic scarcity and privileged access to goods, goods were often distributed to clients as part of dense networks of exchange. If clientelism in general was widespread, it often specifically followed clan or umbrella clan lines in the predominantly Kazakh regions. When Amalbek Tshanov became the governor ofZhambyl oblast in 1995, for example, he removed 140 employees, replacing 80 percent of them with members of the Zhanys subdivision of the Dulat division (Elder Umbrella Clan). Members of this clan, to which Tshanov himself belonged, occupied key posts in the region. 22 A similar situation occurred in Torghai region (now a part of Qostanai oblast), when the new governor broadly promoted the members of his clan Zhoghary-Shekty of the Arghyn division (Middle Umbrella Clan) at

the expense of traditionally predominant Uzyn and Qulan-Qypshaq subdivisions (also Middle Umbrella Clan, but of the Qypshaq division). He offered a spirited defense of his actions, saying, "I will not deny these people, first, as Torghai residents and countrymen [zemliaki], as comrades at work, and as members of a single team."23 In South Kazakhstan region, the extent of clan clientelism was especially noteworthy, as a former member of the regional maslikhat documents. Local subethnic patronage networks reached national-level politics, ensnaring particular members of the lucrative extractive industries, who had a stake in Shymkent's local oil refinery.24 There were other signs that South Kazakhstan region saw particularly active subethnic ties. Its Saizaq district was the first district in the country to create a local "council of elders" to adjudicate local disputes. These elders were the most prominent members of the clans that dominated in the area. In northern Kazakhstan, a similar proposal appears to have fallen on deaf ears.25 If in many cases, patronage led to abuses of power for the benefit of kin groups, these ties were not uniformly understood to be negative. According to one prominent informant, the regional governor of Atyrau in 1998, RaviI' Cherdabaev, had strong ties to the region's dominant subethnic division, and this was a positive; it meant that he understood local conditions and pursued the region's interests. His temporary replacement by a clan outsider was a detriment to the region, and his eventual return to the office a boon, as it brought enormous investment in the region's extractive industries. 26 Whether one viewed such local, subethnic ties as a political asset or a liability depended in part on one's own clan background. An outsider was more likely to claim abuse of power and exclusive subethnic networks, while an insider was more likely to view the same patterns as evidence of political acumen and knowledge of local conditions. Perhaps for this reason, the most vocal critics of existing power relations in South Kazakhstan region were from the Middle Umbrella Clan, which resented domination by the Elder Umbrella Clan elite. Similarly, in Atyrau, where the Younger Umbrella Clan dominated, those who would take the risky step of criticizing existing power relations tended to be from the Middle Umbrella Clan. 27 At the most local level (cities and districts), kin background was a primary consideration in political patronage. As one long-time employee of the Shymkent city akimat noted, when the new akim was

Clan Conflict appointed, he usually replaced about 50 percent of the office staff with his supporters. These people were usually from the same umbrella clan and frequently from the same subgroups.28 Even where hiring did not occur along strictly subethnic lines, employers in state agencies often required job candidates to proffer their subethnic background, as a way to test their trustworthiness. Those few who refused to give their background could be eliminated for not cooperating or accused of not knowing their ethnic roots-that is, for being a Russified Kazakh. 2 9 In everyday life, the conflation of kin ties with professional ties was strikingly normal outside of the rna jor cities. 30 While living in the family of a highly placed police officer in a large town in South Kazakhstan region in 1997, I noted that the police force was staffed by a striking number of members of the same clan. Although the precise nature of such kin ties, not to mention their frequency, was difficult to gauge, there was no question that the average workday intertwined kin and professional obligations. This occurred, for example, when the leadership of the local police force attended - during work hoursthe funeral of a prominent relative who had been a highly placed member on the forceY Similar patterns emerged in higher education. In Shymkent, one ethnic Russian professor may have been exaggerating when he claimed that "kinship determines everything" in faculty appointments to local institutes,32but it is true that kin connections offered broad social utility. For example, it was common for an instructor to give preferential treatment to students from closely related kin background while requiring that poor-performing non-kin students who desired to pass the course pay bribes. In such cases, the instructor would informally use kin-related students as his or her uzyn qulaq (long ear) to find out which non-kin students sought to offer such bribes.33 The widespread practice by which students from rural, or otherwise remote, areas lived with extended families in the city while pursuing higher education also solidified kin-based attachments. Clan played a still-greater role in rural locales. Given declining economic conditions (particularly for animal husbandry), access to scarce goods was established through subethnicity. Place of residence on a micro scale (e.g., who lives on the east side of the river, who lives on the west side) was understood to correspond with clan divisions. Thus, when massive agricultural privatization brought the dismantling

of state and collective farms, it raised the stakes for clan politics. In the process, the members of one local clan often sought to privilege their kin. This could be accomplished through illegal means (by rigging the privatization process to favor kin), but it could also be achieved through legal means. Among them was the legal provision under privatization by which nonfarmers (generally professionalsschoolteachers, doctors, nurses-who had been assigned to work in rural areas during the Soviet period) were not entitled to receive privatized land and were therefore forced to migrate from the locale.34

Russians: The "Fourth Umbrella Clan"? Competition among Kazakh clans was at the center of post-Soviet Kazakhstani politics, but it was dependent, in part, on the larger milieu of interethnic relations. As in any multi-ethnic state, patterns of politics within subpopulations depend on larger societal dynamics. Here, I stop to highlight ways in which changed interethnic relations intensified interclan competition in the late 1990S. Metaphorically, ethnic Russians were occasionally referred to as a "fourth umbrella clan." The logic was that Russians, at approximately 30 percent of the population, could only compete with Kazakhs or individual clan networks if they adopted modes of behavior similar to that of titular Kazakhs; to survive, Russians had to become clannish, by systematically privileging their own kind through patronage. The depiction has a certain logic: the more non-Kazakhs were blocked from access to political and economic goods, the more attractive it became to replicate Kazakhs' access networks. Demographic trends in the 1990S fueled the process. As the relative size of the ethnic Kazakh population increased, clan networks became more and more operative in political life. If, in the past, a powerful Kazakh with alternative networks at his disposal would have had to contend with networks that included any number of others (Russians, Ukrainians, Uzbeks, etc.), now such a powerful Kazakh would contend increasingly with other Kazakhs (among whom he distinguished through their clan background, among other factors). As the relative size of the ethnic Russian population dwindled through emigration, their political marginalization increased and the need to use networks became more apparent. The problem with such a depiction is that it gets the Kazakh side of the story correct while mischaracterizing the Russian side. In the

Clan Conflict

face of clan-based networks, Russians exhibited some degree of cohesion that on occasion resembled kinlike behavior. In this sense, clan may be used as a metaphor. But it is more difficult to generate the trust that is the glue of network behavior when identities are neither concealable nor multi tiered in nature. The result at the republican level was that Nazarbaev found it relatively easy to reward individual Russians for their personal loyalty, undermining any fealty to a larger Russian community. If an ethnic Russian chose not to become ensnared in such patronage relationships, his or her opportunities for professional advancement were correspondingly more limited.

HOW IMPORTANT WERE CLAN NETWORKS?

In the foregoing, I paint a slightly misleading picture of clan politics. Although I have tried to count them, clans are among those political phenomena that are hard to quantify. They are concealable, often invisible, private, and (as the next chapter elaborates) hotly contested. They are not election results or interest rates; they lend themselves poorly to quantification. It is imperative to study their impact using qualitative methods. Yet, ascendant modes of analysis focus on precisely what Kasza calls the "countables" (i.e., that which lends itself to quantification) to tease out the impact of various factors of politicallife,35 Such analyses begin innocently enough, asking that we pose questions in causal terms. How does an array of factors (structural or agent-based; general or contextually specific; interactive or direct) influence a particular political outcome (such as an electoral result, a policy decision, or regime transformation)? These analyses ask that we pay close attention to scientific research design, arguing that successful design can isolate the extent of each factor's causal impact on the outcome in question. The problem with such modes of analysis is not, as the cliche goes, that statistics "lie." Numbers, and the statistical manipulation thereof, are abstractions that may be more or less useful, depending on the subject under study. The problem is that much depends on how the factors and outcomes are conceptualized in the first place. And our initial conceptualizations are often created with an eye to their eventual quantification. Put simply: we focus on those aspects of a political life that are easily counted. This may have professional utility for

the researcher, but if it drives our research agendas we should be suspicious of our own conclusions. Above, I sought to use patterns of political appointments to discern the contours of clan conflict in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. Here is the crux of the problem: I conceptualized clans in a particular way. I painted a picture of clans as networks that allow individuals to access goods that they otherwise would find difficult to procure. Based on what I have observed and learned, I believe that this is much of what clans became in the Soviet period. Beginning with this conceptualization, a core expectation emerges: to the extent that clans "matter" in post-Soviet Central Asia, we will find a state in which the dominant clans systematically privilege their own. We will find that clans privatize the state and its associated resources. We will witness attempts at "social closure" that Weber describes. When we discover that Nazarbaev privileged his own umbrella clan but not to the extent expected, we jump to the conclusion that clan indeed has an impact-but not an overwhelming one-on political life. In statistical language, it affects political life at the margins, and those margins are not enormous. But if we accept this interpretation, we have a pure example of how our conceptual categories (created in part for their "countability") generate our conclusions. It would be a mistake to suggest that clan influences politics only in the sense conceptualized a priori. Take the following hypothetical outcome. In Ministry X, we find that the profile of the personnel mirrors that of the population at large. That is, we find roughly representative numbers of Younger, Middle, and Elder Clan Kazakhs. If clans are exclusive networks that systematically privilege their own kind, we conclude that clan plays little role in the ministry. No systematic exclusion of clans is visible. On the other hand, what alternatives are we missing? One invisible possibility is that the three clans are at a standoff; each seeks to gain exclusive control and systematically privilege its own kind, but none gains ascendancy. A second is that the three clans are not at a standoff but rather have compromised; each retains exclusive control over particular functions within the ministry. Neither of these two possibilities involves a fundamental reconceptualization of clan politics. A third invisible possibility recommends that we rethink how clans behave. What if an act of clan balancing is occurring? That is, what if the clan that is dominant at the margins seeks to retain its marginal

Clan Conflict

111

advantage precisely by appeasing the other clans on an at-least-minimal level? In short, what if a clan's strategy is not to exert its dominance to the fullest extent possible but rather to retain its position by restraining itself from systematically privileging its own kind? In rational-choice language, it may not be a stable equilibrium for clan groups to systematically privilege their own to a degree that categorically excludes alternative clans from power. If dominant clans engage in such behavior, they will undermine the state itself, thus killing their ability to reap benefits. The rational, dominant clan would therefore seek to please its opponents at a minimal level, to avoid such a fate. There is no way to know a priori if this third interpretation is more plausible. It creates an analytic challenge and an empirical one. The analytic challenge is that the outcome of such a situation looks strikingly like a situation in which clans fall by the political wayside. Without tracing the concrete process involved, we have no way of distinguishing among similar results. The empirical challenge is the Somalia case, in which the dominant kin groups simply privatized the state's resources, undermined alternative clans, and thereby fostered the unraveling of the state itself. Either Somali actors did not care whether or not their equilibria were stable, or they had very different goals than most rationalchoice analysts would in their place. Clan politics mattered in Central Asia, but in two ways that are theoretically in tension. These might be called "clan clientelism" and "clan balancing." In the Somalia case, clan clientelism contributed to the collapse of the state but little balancing occurred. In Morocco, something closer to clan balancing occurred, with the monarch lifting himself above the fray of clan competition to adjudicate fair solutions to clan conflict and ensure a relative stability of interclan relations.3 6 In Kazakhstan, both occurred simultaneously. At the core of the regime were practices of clan clientelism, with Nazarbaev creating a pocket of privilege for his extended family and elite members of his umbrella clan. In the broader elite, such privilege was relatively diminished as Nazarbaev sought to foster a degree of clan balancing. Nazarbaev apparently calculated that, even as he sought to privilege his own kind and bring his family material benefit, he ought to avoid the most fundamentally destabilizing practices of clan-based patronage. Individual regions, cities, and districts saw contextually specific mixes of the two principles. Why clan clientelism emerges in some cases while balancing occurs

in others is a subject that deserves further study. In either case, however, clan remains an operative political factor. Clan balancing is the successful management of clan ties (as this book's concl usion explores); it is not the absence of clan as a political factor. In the end, to distinguish between similar outcomes, there is no substitute for in-depth, case-specific knowledge. Analysis that fails to conduct a Geertzian "thick description" risks being correct in a logical-deductive or statistical-mathematical sense but fundamentally at odds with the empirical reality of context-specific politics. It risks ignoring, in Geertz's terms, the difference between an involuntary twitch of the eyelid and a wink that signals conspiracy.37 Close familiarity with cases enables such important distinctions.

6

How much effort and love for genealogies is necessary in order to verify and sort through the testimonies, in which one Kyrgyz [Kazakh] says that his clan [rod] divides into 5 or 6 parts, another from the very same clan assures that there are 12, a third confuses outside divisions with his own, and a fourth, and the most frank [informant], responds that he is completely ignorant.-Aleksei

lraklievich Levshin

CHAPTER

5 DESCRIBED

THE CONTOURS OF KIN-BASED NET-

works and their bearing on state-building outcomes, especially in personnel recruitment. The analysis was predicated on an assumption: that actors have good information about other actors' kin background and therefore may choose to privilege their kin at the expense of nonkin. In this chapter, I relax this assumption because, as a matter of everyday political life, actors often faced just the opposite in post-Soviet Kazakhstan: an information deficit. This information deficit lent clan politics an additional dynamic that centered on discursive conflicts about clans. When information about kinship is widely available, political actors may use such information and may also scrutinize the behaviors of others for possible favoritism. But such information is not always available. Under such circumstances, a meta conflict over the contours of clan networks, the meanings attributed to clan divisions, and the character of insider politics ensues. This metaconflict-a discursive battle over the role that clans are understood factually to play in contemporary politics and over the role that clans ought normatively to play in political lifeoccurs because the ongoing stigma attributed to clan divisions removes

them from legitimate public space and disrupts the free Row of information about kinship. Because kin divisions continued to be driven from public space, political and social actors often possessed quite sketchy knowledge of the kin background of other actors. But this sketchiness of knowledge was an opportunity, since it allowed political entrepreneurs to speculate grandly, using the language of clans to discredit their political opponents. Thus, the modernist discourse that stigmatized clan divisions as "regressive" or "primitive" meant that political actors had to find ways to deny acting in a "clannish" fashion. The shift in discussion that this chapter undertakes is represented in figures 6.1 and 6.2, below. It begins with the picture painted in the previous chapter: in recruitment to the state apparatus, kinship was clearly operative. But clan networks played one role when information on clan background was widely available (figure 6.1) and another when it was not (figure 6.2).

information on recruitees' kin'hip, qu,iifi"tiull>

/

L...-_ _- '

- - - - -.. ~ decision to hire kin or non-kin

f~re 6.1.

~

scrutinize

1-----1

....

outsider 1

Role of Kinship in Information-Rich Environments

unable to scrutinize

lack of information

---.1

outsider

1

~

~

decision to hire kin or non-kin

speculation, using discourse of clans (metaconflict)

fi61"e 6.2.. Clan Metaconflict in Information-Poor Environments

Clan Metaconflict When information on clan background is available to insiders/ recruiters (figure 6.1), they use it in making decisions in personnel appointments. When the same information is available to outsiders, the latter may scrutinize hiring practices for possible biases. Outsiders and insiders thus engage in clan conflict, as they angle for access to goods and scrutinize each others' behavior. At the same time, information on clan background is often unavailable to outsiders (figure 6.2). In information-poor environments, outsiders not privy to insider information cannot discern how important kinship considerations are in hiring practices. This presents for them an obstacle: they cannot closely scrutinize the behavior of insiders on the basis of high-quality information. On the other hand, it also creates for them an opportunity: they may use the language of clan divisions to paint insiders as behaving in regressive and evolutionarily primitive ways that undermine the effectiveness of state institutions. This chapter discusses two clusters of actors ensnared in this metaconflict: quasi-state actors and members of the opposition. Each was deeply involved in shaping the discursive politics of clan divisions. Quasi-state actors (i.e., local agents occupying formal, state posts but who pursued their own political agendas) attempted to dismantle the anti-clan modernist discourse by depicting clans as the source of Kazakh ethnic pride. At the same time, the members of a broad opposition used the modernist discourse to criticize the Nazarbaev regime for its insularity, corruption, and familialism. QUASI-STATE ACTORS

Quasi-state actors are those agents of state authority who manage to pursue their own political agendas while implementing official policy decisions. They find considerable room for maneuver even as they work on behalf of central authorities. In post-Soviet Kazakhstan, regional and local akims may safely be described using this language. Perhaps the single most important policy area for these quasi-state actors in the 1990S was ethnic redress (i.e., affirmative action). In this area their leeway to implement policy in ways that made local political sense deeply shaped clan metaconflict. Why this was the case requires some explanation. Broadly speaking, state-led efforts of affirmative action provided

material benefits to many Kazakhs. It is noteworthy, however, that the commitment of the state elite to Kazakhification was often more discursive than immediately material. If in Malaysia, preferences were explicit and given legal grounding (even if the implementation was uneven and the subject of ongoing political debate), in Kazakhstan these policies were ad hoc and extralegal from the start. Moreover, problems with funding, implementation, and logistics rendered this in no small part a multilayered campaign on paper. One state official admitted that Nazarbaev's widely promoted Strategy 2030, for example, did not affect ordinary people as intended, a fact he attributed to popular demobilization and widespread apathy towards anything politicaJ.I By creating a diffuse, discourse-based campaign ofKazakhification, the state spawned a whole series of consequences, many of which were unintended. Unlike more focused state-led discursive efforts-such as, for example, televised anti-drug campaigns that target teenagers in advanced industrial countries - this campaign was diffuse. As such, its impact lay crucially in the hands of those state officials and quasistate agents in individual locales who endeavored to translate state discourse on Kazakhness into political practice on the ground. A few incidents illustrate the liberties taken at the local level. Article 19 of the Constitution unambiguously states, "Each person is permitted to define and indicate or not indicate his/her national, party, or religious affiliation,"2 but local officials in South Kazakhstan oblast frustrated an ethnic Russian journalist's attempt to prevent his ethnicity from appearing in his new internal passport. After several months in national-level courts at considerable personal expense, he secured the right to withhold his ethnicity. He attributed his relative success to his being an exceptionally visible journalist} While the republic's Constitution was widely available for sale and loudly trumpeted as a feature of modern statehood, these local officials had clearly taken their cues from other sources. In another case, a local state official in South Kazakhstan oblast in 1998 justified local initiatives to promote the Kazakh language with reference to a single aspect of state language law: that the language was considered a "consolidating factor" in a multi-ethnic Kazakhstan. Conceding that there were critics of local initiatives to promote Kazakh, he added, "We found a general consensus over all [of them] ."4 The broad promotion of the markers of Kazakhness led to a recon-

Clan Metaconflict stitution of politically salient subethnic identities, in large part by individual local initiative. In a state with a significant ethnic Slavic minority and that was popularly viewed as bi-ethnic, clan and umbrella clan genealogies experienced a revival as traits that distinguished ethnic Kazakhs from the nontitular citizens of independent Kazakhstan. An explosion of interest in genealogical knowledge, widespread celebrations of clan-based historical figures and monuments, and a dramatic increase in private and semipublic discussion of the subethnic backgrounds of others all testify to the mounting significance of these identities. In short, genealogical knowledge was understood to be axiomatic (even if it required reviving in the 1990s). Many considered such knowledge to have a functional purpose as well. The contention was that genealogical knowledge enabled strong community relations among Kazakhs, which ultimately was a mechanism for the preservation of groups under severe ecological conditions. 5 The powerful governor of Almaty oblast described the close relations among relatives: "Concern of close relatives for the family of a brother who had passed away was, even in the postwar troubles, a distinguishing feature of the behavior of Kazakhs. Neither the change of regime, nor the relatively new code of ethnic establishment of powers, nor the little-allowed observance of traditions of the ancestors of the steppe generations [kolen 1were capable of shaking the eternal, sacred duty of relatives to care for their close ones who had come upon misfortune."6 Of course, by the late Soviet and post-Soviet periods, there were too many competing allegiances - to Party, to internationalism, to nontitulars with privileged access to scarce goods, and so on-to accept these depictions as descriptively accurate. The argument here is not that genealogical knowledge was an inalienable, inherent, or primordial trait among Kazakhs, but rather that quasi-state actors held it up as such. Thus, the picture should be one of directionality, that is, thatthere was a movementto (re)discover genealogies. One young professional living in Almaty described how in the early 1990S she developed an interest in her genealogy, although in her urban childhood she had not been socialized to know much beyond her grandparents' generation. This revived interest appears typical for Kazakhs during the period) . Unlike the genealogies (shezhire) of the pre-Soviet period, which were largely committed to memory and transmitted orally, the genealo-

gies of the post-Soviet period were published for an almost universally literate Kazakh population. Some were reprints of classic authors' attempts at universal classification of Kazakhs' and related peoples' backgrounds. 8 Others were more contemporary versions thereof.9 The vast majority, however, sought to catalogue ancestors among a more specifically defined subdivision. For example, one offered almost seventy-five pages of diagrams of interrelations among the politically important Qongyrats of the Middle Umbrella Clan. lO These works offered the backdrop for more homespun, self-published or unpublished accounts of the genealogies of very specific segments that often included the author himself.l1 While no data are available on the number of written genealogies generated since the Soviet collapse, indications are clear that the practice was widespread, as informants described that even in urban areas these books were a popular gift in the early to mid-199os.12 In addition, the print runs in some cases ran as high as one hundred thousand, an enormous figure in a country with approximately eight million Kazakhs whose disposable income for nonessentials had plummeted since the Soviet collapse. An emphasis on genealogical knowledge came from Kazakhspeaking milieus. Kazakh-Ianguage newspapers depicted the revival of genealogies as an imperative for all Kazakhs. "To know one's origins is a sign of a good upbringing," proclaimed one 1997 article in the culture-oriented Qazaq adebieti. 13 Discussing the Russian-style patronymic endings ethnic Kazakhs assumed in the Soviet period, it suggested, "In the period of the red empire, we were fearful and too intimidated to inquire about our family origins. These legacies of ageold customs were associated with nostalgia for the past. Was that right? Not only was the great national quality, our distinctiveness, cast off from our family origins, but were we not made to wear the yoke of Russian 'ov' and 'eva?"'14 Thus, the broad rhetoric of a return to original markers of Kazakhness found reflection in a renewed interest in genealogies. In addition to a revived interest in genealogies, individual locales and regions began to identify and glorify clan-based heroes, to rename streets, schools, and former state farms in their honor, and to emphasize the role of particular segments in Kazakh history. In short, regional and local elites sought to restore to clan identities the cultural content, of which the Soviet experience had deprived them. To what extent were these local initiatives manifestations of subethnic

Clan Metaconflict identities, and to what extent were they simply a return to important but forgotten aspects of an ethnic Kazakh history? For many cases, it makes little sense to disentangle whether what was being celebrated had an ethnic or a subethnic basis. The two categories are not mutually exclusive; moreover, they are nested in the sense that manifestations of the lower affiliation generally imply a simultaneous enactment of the higher-level one. 15 From this perspective, it is not surprising that a promotion of ethnicity would entail a simultaneous promotion of subethnic affiliations. On the surface, many local efforts to celebrate the historical significance oflocal figures or places appear to have been ad hoc and idiosyncratic, but the sheer frequency of their occurrence across a broad territory was striking. For example: The authorities in Zhezqazghan oblast attempted to draw attention to Ulytau, the mythical place where Kazakh statehood is said to have begun. 16 In Qaraghandy, one article fixed the number of architectural "objects" in the oblast at more than four hundred and estimated that more than ten times that number of sites deserved immediate attention for their historical value but remained unexcavated. 17 In Mangystau oblast, a region of profound archaeological interest, there was a call for restoring the mausoleums and necropolises of various figures dating to the ninth century. IS In Semei oblast, the descendants of Toghybai batyr (hero) erected an "interesting and unique monument" in his honor. 19 In Taldy-Qorghan, a fund was established to build a monument to Eskeldi batyr. 20 In Aqtobe, a funeral repast (as beru) was held for Eset batyr of the Shekti clan (Younger Umbrella Clan).21 Qyzylorda oblast celebrated Zhanqozhy batyr, a prominent warrior against the Kokand Khanate and then Russian imperial expansion. 22 Some historical figures were the subject of protracted, multievent celebrations, as in the case of Bogenbai batyr of the Qanzhygaly of the Middle Umbrella Clan in Akmolinsk oblast. As in other regions, the demise of Soviet symbols created an opportunity for renaming various objects of significance; accordingly, authorities elected to honor local notables. Thus, in the city of Aqmola, Five-Year Plan Street was renamed Bogenbai Street/3 and the state farm "Peaceful" in Seletinsk district of Akmolinsk oblast was recast as Bogenbai Farm. 24 The region's papers carried innumerable articles covering the sacred history of Bogenbai and his efforts to stave off Zhungar advances in the early eighteenth century. In addition, a scholarly con-

ference was convened,25 and two monuments were erected in his honor in the oblast. 26 This celebration had profound connotations for subethnic identities. One news account made a hero of a direct ancestor of Bogenbai who had kept Bogenbai's helmet in safe keeping, never surrendering it to the authorities during the Soviet period, and finally coming forth in time for the celebration of Bogenbai's three hundreth birthday.27 During the birthday celebration, "the esteemed elders [present] ... represented the legendary segment of the batyr Bogenbai. They told of the legends connected with Bogenbai batyr that had been carefully protected throughout the generations."28 Some regions lagged in their staging of such celebrations. Qyzylorda oblast, among the most poverty-stricken areas, encountered acute difficulties with funding and adequate building materials in its drive to restore mosques, towers, and other memorial structures. Local officials claimed that restorative efforts began "notably later" than in other oblasts. 29 Indeed, whether through press accounts or personal networks, many officials seemed clearly aware of the attention to historical figures lavished in the other administrative regions. One article from the official paper in Akmolinsk oblast lamented, "You get offended for our fellow countrymen [zemliaki] when you read in the papers or see on television how in the other oblasts people unveil monuments to their heroes and historical personalities. Can it really be that we cannot be proud of our history, that we will have nothing to show our children ... ?"30 Given that most of the limited funding for restoring sites of cultural significance, as well as for publicizing the endeavors of almost forgotten heroes, came from Almaty (and with the move of the capital in late 1997, Astana), competition was keen. Regions therefore touted the significance of the sites in their jurisdiction as somehow central to Kazakh history. Thus, an official paper in Mangystau oblast claimed with optimism in 1998, "It would not be surprising if the Mangyshlaq [peninsula] turned into a Mecca for archaeologists and tourists."31 Why would local authorities stage a semipublic battle over resources to conduct celebrations of their local heroes? Why were these resources considered worth the effort? While some state officials probably desired to line their pockets under any available pretext, funding was not the only good in scarce supply. The attributes understood

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to underlie Kazakhness-Ianguage, genealogical knowledge, and connection to events or personages of historical significance - were sorely lacking, especially among the members of a largely Russified political elite. To embrace the markers of Kazakh identity (or at minimum to become the rhetorical champion of those markers) was part of a bidding war in the context of a society widely understood to be bi-ethnic. Distinguishing oneself from the ethnic other was a political tool, and widespread attention to local heroes and historical sites honed the instrument. Although embracing Kazakh traits did not always translate directly into material rewards, it did hold the promise of future gains in the context of an increasingly ethnic Kazakh Kazakhstan. These state-led attempts at ethnic redress served to reinvigorate subethnic identities because of the activities of quasi-state actors who implemented them. This was not what the state elite had intended. If anything, state actors rather had preferred to unify ethnic Kazakhs as a strategy of ethnic nation building. Instead, their actions lent political salience to the subdivisions among ethnic Kazakhs. Reframing kinship and its significance, these regional actors were involved in a metaconflict. While they seemed determined to portray subethnic divisions as the positive markers of Kazakhness and themselves as the carriers of these identities, members of the opposition contested the notion that subethnicity could be progressive in any sense. THE OPPOSITION

In contrast to the quasi-state actors, the opposition used a discussion of subethnicity to criticize officialdom. A diverse group invoked subethnicity as a means of discrediting the regime for its lack of transparency and openness. Their central claim was that clan clientelismthe privileged allocation of resources along subethnic lines-was rampant among the elite. In advancing this contention, the opposition engaged the metaconflict by depicting subethnicity as negative-as the wellspring of traditionalism and backwardness. These claims had some empirical basis in patterns of official behavior, but they went beyond descriptive accuracy; they were marshaled in exaggerated tones for political effect. As chapter 5 detailed, there is no question that clan identity con-

tinued to inform patronage networks in the 1990S. However, the extent of these networks was itself an object of contention. To what degree was clan patronage a central aspect of political life, and to what degree were claims about the pervasiveness of subethnic clientelism part of a larger metaconflict? Clan politics was behind-the-scenes; relationships were opaque. This opacity was not only a methodologicat obstacle for researchers; it was also an epistemological one for any outsider, be that person a researcher or a political actor.

Subethnic Criticism Exaggeration for political effect is not the monopoly of the masters of "spin" in advanced industrial democracies. Central to these clan struggles was a powerfully resonant discourse on subethnic identities that was marshaled by a diverse political opposition intent on discrediting the Nazarbaev regime. Events dealing with Nurbulat Masanov, a prominent member of the liberal opposition, vividly illustrate how the regime viewed kin-based commentaries as a threat. The use of subethnicity as a way to criticize the regime, however, was not limited to liberals; rather, it was common across the broad spectrum of opposition groups. These criticisms had a clear empirical basis in observations of officialdom, but they went beyond simple descriptions of behaviors to render the polity as closed, primitive, and traditional. Scholar and activist Nurbulat Masanov wrote a series of articles critical of the regime in which he used subethnicity to interpret political developmentsY His deliberate marginalization by state officials from the scholarly community points to the threat perceived in his analyses. It is not merely that Masanov's critiques got too close to the truth by revealing patterns of subethnic politics. The very fact of marshaling such critiques based on clan divisions-identities that were stigmatized as backward and primitive in the context of modern statehood - implied a general criticism of the regime. A composite of Masanov's scholarship will help to illustrate the controversy. In some senses, Masanov was a typical intellectual product of the Soviet period, combining elements of primordialism with a Marxian emphasis on evolutionary stages of development. He posited a stark dichotomy between the traditional (which he took to persist in forms unchanged from the pre-Soviet past) and the modern (which he idealized for its freedom of movement, social mobility, and complexity).

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In other respects, Masanov stood apart from his colleagues. Broadly read, he commanded a wide audience as the end of Soviet dominance brought with it a renewed interest in pre-Soviet traditions. While his relatively poor knowledge of the Kazakh language did not endear him to Kazakh ethnonationalists, his erudition on nomadism remained unparalleled. More theoretically sophisticated than many of his peers, he was uniquely willing to marry the language of scholarship with the vehemence of political criticism. Moreover, unlike the vast majority of other scholars associated with the opposition, Masanov remained largely independent of domestic actors in Kazakhstan, opening him to the criticism of that he relied on foreign donor groups. Taking a cue from traditions of structural-functional anthropology, he argued that the harsh climatic conditions of the Eurasian territory virtually determined the essential cultural patterns and modes ofbehavior that he considered hallmarks of Kazakhness.33 While milder climatic conditions allowed for greater variation in social structure and mode of economy in much of the world, the semi-desert, desert, and steppe severely limited such variation in the territory of what is now Kazakhstan. Instead, capital accumulation was negligible, so one of the prime engines of social change was largely absent.34 What the nomads lacked in capital accumulation, Masanov argued, they made up for in knowledge accumulation: "the very survival of the nomad was possible only given the possession [ovladenie] of special knowledge accumulated and passed on by generations of ancestors."35 He contended that under such conditions, if this knowledge as well as limited property were made diffuse, this would heighten competition for already scarce resources (pasturage, water). Therefore, nomads would instead transmit their knowledge and property through patrilineal channels. While "social organization could become significantly more complicated under the influence of other principles ... the high consistency [ustoichivost'] of the genealogical principle does not raise any doubts."3 6 Gradually, Masanov became a political critic, authoring an alternative constitution for the republic and participating in various weak opposition movements, such as Citizen, People's Front (Narodnyi front), the Republican People's Party, and Democratic Choice ofKazakhstan. His articles appeared with increasing frequency on the pages of Kazakhstan's relatively liberal press, and while they never lost their tone of scholarly authority, they demonstrated an increasingly clear

criticism of the current regime. The Kazakh-Ianguage press, which received generous operational subsidies from state agencies, routinely singled out Masanov for being a Russified Kazakh who ostensibly did not respect his own people, preferring instead to travel to Europe and to forge ties with the Soros Foundation}? As a critic of the regime, Masanov was one of many. His criticism, however, was deemed unusually threatening in official circles. In 1996, Masanov published an article entitled "Kazakh Political and Intellectual Elite: Clan Membership and Intra-Ethnic Competition" in a Moscow-based journal. In this article, he used clan and umbrella clan backgrounds broadly to analyze Soviet and post-Soviet political developments}8 About Nazarbaev, in particular, he noted the pattern of appointments from the village of Chemolgan (Nazarbaev's birthplace), which gave rise to depictions of the Chemolganizatsiia (Chemolganization) of the power structures. Part of his conclusion contended that competition of the umbrella clans on the elite level played and plays an extremely important role in the life of Kazakh society. Notwithstanding, we should not forget that no clan is monolithic, since among Kazakhs intraclan competition is also widespread. Much depends on the concrete region and concrete people, but it is quite well-known, for example, that some Arghyns, Naimans, and Qypshaqs cannot stand each other. In the Younger Clan, Alimulins and Vailulins condescend to the Zhetiru. In the Elder Clan, the Shaprashts and Dulats are more influential than others, often hampering the advancement of representatives of other clans.39

Observers of Kazakhstani politics, both casual and professional, will recognize this mode of analysis as common in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. Rumor, innuendo, and private conversation routinely centered on speculation about the umbrella clan and clan-based machinations understood to underlie patterns of political appointments. Masanov differed from others in that his analysis that listed individual names from across officialdom saw publication, and this posed a particular threat to the Nazarbaev regime. The issue came to a head in March 1998 when President Nazarbaev summoned members of the cultural intelligentsia to hear him speak about the "Moral and Political Choice of the Intelligentsia."

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In this session, he admonished those present for "not taking into consideration ... the historical and social responsibility of the Kazakh intelligentsia" to "demonstrat[ e] restraint and wisdom, not allowing [themselves] to succumb to emotional calls to arms."4° After a long excursus on the historical role of the intelligentsia, he called upon those present to, among other things, "preserve not only interethnic [mezhnatsional'nyi] but also intraethnic [vnutrinatsional'nyi] peace in the country. The whole history of our defeats, the whole history of our victories, is connected to ethnic [natsional'nyi] unity."41 Nazarbaev likened subethnic analysis on the part of the intelligentsia to an ostensible desire to divide Kazakhs, singling out Masanov's article. According to Masanov's description of the events, the president said: "He has divided [raspisal] all of you sitting here by your kin background [rodovoi priznak]."42 Several weeks later, Masanov was removed from his tenured position at Kazakh National State University. Even before these events, as a Russia-trained and linguistically Russified Kazakh, Masanov had already engendered a degree of opposition. Masanov's article convinced his opponents that he was merely the latest in a string of outsiders - everyone from tsarist administrators to Stalin himself-who exploited clan divisions to divide and rule the Kazakhs. Nazarbaev's words had given Masanov's critics ammunition in their long-standing struggle. While it is impossible to say whether or not the president personally sanctioned this action, his position on Masanov's article encouraged those inclined to make a move. Part of the reason that the Masanov critique was effective is that it accurately captured empirical patterns about clan networks. Had his depictions of subethnicity-based politics been totally off the mark, officials might have summarily dismissed them as irrelevant and unthreatening. But perhaps the effectiveness of clan-based critiques lay not in their ultimate truth or falsity (neither of which could, in any event, be established conclusively). The specific claims about patterns of clan clientelism notwithstanding, the regime faced a more general criticism-based on accusations of traditionalism, patrimonialism, and secretiveness.

Criticism across the Political Spectrum The Masanov controversy was a particularly vivid illustration of how the regime viewed subethnic analysis as threatening, but similar cri-

tiques were offered across the political spectrum. Liberals, ethnonationalists, the technocratic elite, ethnic Russians, and even some external actors used the language of clans to discredit the regime. The diversity of ultimate ends that actors pursued through use of this criticism highlights its broad resonance. The invocation of sub ethnic identities was not merely a specific way to comment on observed patterns of political behavior; it was a more general political tool used against the regime. Who constituted this opposition? Opposition to the regime was poorly reflected in organized politics. Political parties encountered myriad problems of organization, resources, and legal and extralegal restrictions. The opposition is better characterized not according to formal organizations but rather by the political agendas pursued, which included (1) a liberal agenda of human rights and political freedoms, (2) a culturalist agenda to promote the Kazakh culture and language, and (3) a technocratic agenda of preparing the state for international economic competitiveness. 43 Subethnic criticism spanned all three agendas. Masanov and other political liberals took as their central goal to democratize politics and establish guarantees against the arbitrary exercise of power. Among them, the claim that elite politics turned on clan clientelism achieved wide sweep. This claim potentially included both kin and non-kin, leaving no political actor fully immune to its taint. The criticism allowed political liberals to construct a broad criticism that suggested a closed, premodern, exclusive, authoritarian polity, in which patrimonialism was rampant. An erstwhile coauthor with Masanov and a prominent liberal critic ofNazarbaev, Nurlan Amrekulov, marshaled subethnic criticisms in ways similar to Masanov. 44 In a 1998 interview published in a newspaper known for engendering controversy, he remarked, We Kazakhs began our movement to the market essentially from prefeudal positions, from kin-tribal structures. Our kin-tribal (clannic) construction of society persists; kinship governs the individual. When the republic received sovereignty, the clannic principle simply reproduced itself. Deterrent mechanisms, checks on power that in other countries, for example, are the parliament, were absent. And, if something was divided up, it was divided in the closest of surroundings, among faithful people. In order to gain a position, one must have a patron. 45

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What is notable about this criticism is how easily the author moves from descriptions ofkin-tribal (rodoplemennye) ties to the language of close family circles; for the liberal opposition the language of family and the claim of clan clientelism allowed the criticism to be extended beyond those with formal kin ties. Nonrelatives were routinely described as ensnared in these networks; the logic was that even though they were not technically part of a family (or clan) network, by their behavior they might as well have been. Amrekulov added in a full-length, self-published monograph that "traditionalism, ethnocentrism, an orientation to a dead-end resource strategy, skepticism about the power and creative potential of the people is what distinguishes this high-level, predominantly Kazakh nomenklatura that groups itself around the president."46 At the other end of the political spectrum, Kazakh ethnonationalists, with a political agenda that centered on strategies for reviving Kazakh culture and language, also marshaled this critique. This is noteworthy, since the political force of this group was particularly dependent on state resources. Unlike their Russian-language counterparts, those whose education, training, and socialization were in Kazakhlanguage environments were not the recipients of Soviet-era skills that translated well into independent political power in the post-Soviet era. To the contrary, ethnonationalists largely pursued their agenda through state agencies such as Qazaq tili and the Ministry for Information and Social Accord, which sponsored programs promoting Kazakh language and culture.47 Largely dependent on state structures, ethnonationalists used the subethnic critique more rarely but in ways similar to their liberal colleagues. Unlike the liberals who referred to traditional practices and the pre-Soviet era as a way to discredit the regime, many ethnonationalists viewed pre-Soviet traditions-including broad knowledge of genealogies-with nostalgia. The criticism from this group cited the regime for using family circles to satisfy particularistic agendas, rather than to provide public goods of broad use for all Kazakhs. Khasen Qozhaakhmet, a prominent member of this group, in an interview depicted clan identity as the domain of the nomenklatura class. Ordinary people were not interested in these issues, he claimed; they were more interested in national unity.48 Thus, the ethnonationalists used the subethnic criticism to depict a corrupt regime bent on sowing disunity among Kazakhs to its own private gain.

Evidence from the ground level suggests that such critiques were common among ordinary Kazakh speakers, that is, those most likely to support an ethnonationalist agenda. In private gatherings, especially traditional ones where subethnicity played a role, such as wedding rituals (qyz alu, betashar), funeral repasts, and other events defined by family ties, private conversations that turned to political issues often viewed developments in similar terms. In such settings, stereotypes about the assumed characteristics of other subethnic groupings were reinforced, especially through jokes and witticisms. 49 As a matter of fact, actors excluded from access to power may have suffered their fates for a variety of reasons. Their lack of proper kin ties was only one possibility among many. In the rapidly changing configurations of Kazakhstani politics, other reasons for exclusion included lack of access to foreign investors, to ready domestic capital, to cheap domestic resources, to powerful press actors, or the existence of dose connections to Islamic groups, foreign human rights organizations, or informal groups of ethnic Russians or Cossacks. Nonetheless, the most powerful metaphor of exclusion was the clan. It indexed a whole series of notions about the backwardness of tradition. The criticism was a powerful way by which a political outsiderwhatever that person's agenda-could decry the regime for its particularism, for its exclusionism, for distributing benefits to a certain few insiders rather than to a broader array of groups. On an everyday basis, ethnic Russians made similar claims, although published accounts of such critical voices are relatively rarer. Typical were the comments of one thirty-eight-year-old taxi driver in Almaty, who suggested that the umbrella clans always fight among themselves. When pressed on how he knows this, he replied that "It just seems to be so."5° On the level of ordinary discourse, many Russians expressed the opinion that sub ethnic politics was one of many negative manifestations of a more general trend of Kazakhification. For ethnic Russian critics locked out of access to power, the subethnic criticism derided Kazakhification as a return to the primitive. Calling Kazakhstan an historically "quite uninhabited [pustynnoe] space between Russia and China," one Russian member of the opposition asserted, Kazakhstan is always prone to separatism because it is an artificial formation .... And, the Kazakhs now in power try to carry out the idea

Clan Metaconflict [of nation-statehood] -that we are on the age-old land of our ancestors, and so on .... We understand that Kazakhstan does not have the possibility to return to some traditional history, to a pre-Soviet history, and to build on that basis some - perhaps not a very modern, but a relatively balanced-state like Uzbekistan has .... We must build a civil society and attempt to cross the bridge from the kin-tribal to the modern, but we have neither the time, nor the possibility, nor the material to conduct all these transformationsY

In a similar fashion, Piotr Svoik, a vocal and critical Russian who took up the mantle of political liberalism to defend the rights of Russians living in Kazakhstan, published an article in the weekly tabloid Karavan that generated much controversy and created legal troubles for the paper. (Because of this article, the newspaper was being investigated in 1998 for violating article 20, section 3 of the Constitution, which prohibits "propaganda or agitation ... of social, racial, national, religious, class, or tribal superiority.... "52 ) About pre-Soviet Kazakhstan, Svoik claimed, "In essence, the single thing that among nomads was fortified and passed down through inheritance was [their] mentality based on the sanctity of kinship and the right of power." He continued, "Corruption, incompetence and treachery are the ancestral markings [rodovye pri:maki] of the current system of power." The author here played on the double meaning of rodovye, which denotes both "ancestral" and "kin-related."53 Criticism of this sort allowed Russians disgruntled with the loss of status (or even with the demise of the USSR) to render the post-Soviet regime as backward and traditional. It was a broadly resonant way to discredit the regime for being unable to perform up to the standards of modern states. Russians were not the only citizens with nostalgic visions of the Soviet period. The dislocations caused by plummeting industrial output, the collapse of state-sector employment, and other strains of economic transformation lent resonance to nostalgic visions of the Soviet period among broad swaths of the population, regardless of ethnicity. At the level of ordinary people, one Kazakh fisherman in his early forties from the Arys region in South Kazakhstan oblast directed his ire against local elders, claiming that they were responsible for encouraging subethnic divisions. He recalled that during the Soviet period, people of all cultural backgrounds lived together and that the economy was also much better. This reasoning that made a connection

between an imagined cultural harmony and visions of economic stability remained fairly common. 54 Technocrats also marshaled these sorts of claims. The rapid insertion of Kazakhstan into the world economy, which began in 1994 with the introduction of the national currency (tenge) and a subsequent austerity plan, was accompanied by a state-led effort to train economic managers, both abroad and in local institutes. This stratum of usually young technocrats took up the critique as a way to address economic inefficiency and back-room deals with high transaction costs. Akezhan Kazhegel'din, before being disqualified from participating in the 1998 presidential elections on a state-crafted technicality, offered a soft rhetorical version of this argument, writing, "The following variant is possible: when an authoritarian political regime is formed at the stage when market relations are just being established, the illegal assimilation of power and property by a concrete high official, his family, his relatives and friends, his clan [klan 1is all too probable. Is this not what we now observe in Kazakhstan?"55 Interestingly, the criticism was also issued from beyond the borders of Kazakhstan. While it is difficult to know the extent of external actors who used the critique, those who linked their well-being to the shape of the regime found it effective. For example, the ultranationalist Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky and his inaccurately named Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) focused attention on Kazakhstan because of the presence of six million diaspora Russians "stranded" there with the Soviet collapse. Known for hyperbole and clownishness, Zhirinovsky demonstrated real political acumen in his surprising performance in the 1993 elections to the Russian Duma, leading to concern in Kazakhstan over whether his widely quoted dream of Russian soldiers "washing their boots in the Indian Ocean" was not a threat to the territorial integrity of Central Asian states. Especially in the context of 1990, during Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's claim on the northern regions of contemporary Kazakhstan, the rhetoric of such neoimperialists was taken seriously. While it is difficult to ascertain the LDP's actual interests in Kazakhstan, there was no question that depicting neighboring states in unflattering terms for their treatment of ethnic Russians residing there was part and parcel of its approach. In 1997, with borders more normalized both politically and in the imaginations of ordinary people, neoimperialist visions from the

Clan Metaconflict north were no longer highly politicized matters, but they were still a concern. Under such circumstances, the LDP began publishing a "scholarly" series called the "Imperial Collection" (Imperskii sbomik), and the first volume was dedicated to Kazakhstan. 56 The volume's preface, while not calling into question Kazakhstan's right to sovereign statehood, did emphasize that its territory was "populated by the very same Russian people [as those in Russia], but who by the criminal will of unlucky politicians were torn away from the maternal body of the country."57 The Imperskii volume described the "battle for oil in Kazakhstan," in which a "narrow group of the closest relatives of Nursultan Nazarbaev and the clan-tribal leaders" of the Elder and Younger Umbrella Clans monopolized the sector. 58 Accordingly, besides Nazarbaev, a network involving the director of the State Committee on Investments (Akhmetzhan Esimov), the husband of Nazarbaev's daughter Dinara (Timur Kulibaev), and the husband of Nazarbaev's other daughter Oariga (Rakhat Aliev) represented the "basic principle of the functioning of the Kazakhstani economy."59 These relationships were entrenched through an alliance with foreign (especially American) capital. While the Imperskii volume was written by capable analysts with a largely plausible rendering of the high-stakes politics of oil in the region, and while there was substantial evidence that the depiction of the increasing concentration of power in the hands of N azarbaev's family was accurate, there is no question what other purposes the language of subethnicity served. A regime to Russia's south that was understood to be deeply corrupt and wildly clientelistic was a regime incapable of defending the rights of its citizens, especially ethnic Russians. The publication was an effort to legitimate the political agenda of the LOP, insofar as it extended beyond the borders of the Russian Federation.

Opacity and the Political Use of Available Data The politics of subethnicity as criticism was made resonant because it allowed various actors, on the basis of incomplete evidence, to depict the regime in unflattering terms. As outsiders, they could make judgments about opaque relationships, judgments that were subject to profound political forces. This is not to imply that oppositionist depictions were necessarily inaccurate; in fact, there is much to recommend them.

It is to suggest that, as outsiders, such actors' conclusions were also related to their political agendas. This should not be surprising. Many who used the subethnic critique first identified a group of people with common subethnic background and only then described the political position of these people relative to one another. This recalled the "sharpshooter" who riddles the side of a barn with bullets and only afterwards superimposes a bull'seye target where the holes have clustered. 6o By contrast, as we saw earlier, if one first selected the domain of political activity and afterwards examined subethnic backgrounds, the picture was less determinate. Take, for example, South Kazakhstan region, predominantly ethnic Kazakh and consisting of Kazakhs predominantly from the Elder Umbrella Clan; one would expect this predominance to be reflected in the composition of appointments. In fact, of the seventeen local akims in December 1997, seven were from the Elder Umbrella Clan, six were from the Middle, one was Korean, one Russian, and one was of unidentified background. 61 Similarly, according to a key informant from a university in Taraz, where one would expect to find a similar predominance of Elder Clan Kazakhs, leading university administrators in early 1999 were three from the Elder Clan, two from the Middle, two from the Younger, one Uzbek, and one Tatar. 62 In these cases, the picture was not one of obvious clan clientelism. There was not much consensus over the specific shape of subethnic politics, even among those who studied the question closely. The 1997 move of the capital from Almaty to Astana is illustrative. Observers named many possible factors explaining the move, one of which was clan politics. Among those who singled out the clan factor, there was striking divergence of opinion. Some, for example, viewed the move as a way to appease the Middle Clan Kazakhs, historically locked out of the ruling coalition between the Younger and Elder Clans, by giving them closer access to the resources of state. Others took the opposite viewpoint, believing this a step toward further Elder Clan domination by enabling a closer watch over the affairs of Middle Clan Kazakhs. To be clear: this is not to suggest that clan was not a critical criterion in this policy decision. Rather, it is to argue that whether one took one viewpoint versus the other in the face of inconclusive evidence was itself a political question. Moreover, the knowledge of genealogies was a growth industry in

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the 1990S, given renewed popular interest in pre-Soviet forms of identity. Books purporting to be the authoritative shezhire of one or another subethnic division graced bookshelves in most homes, even in urban areas. The rapidity of publication to meet demand led to the possibility of serious mistakes. In addition, a widespread normative expectation that Kazakhs must possess genealogical knowledge led to feverish attempts to obtain that knowledge. While informants insisted that falsification of one's own genealogy was impossible - that any such attempt would be discovered rather quickly-the possibility that one would come to hasty conclusions about the shezhire of those in opaque relationships, especially those in the distant seats of political power, was omnipresent.

THE REGIME RESPONDS

The regime's response suggests that the subethnic criticism worked to good effect. A myriad of articles appeared in the state-run press and official academic journals that, attempting to co-opt the discussion of subethnicity, stressed the positive features of subethnic identity for Kazakhs. One article in the semi-scholarly journal Aqiqat attempted to recast traibalizm as zhuzizm, linguistically distancing the assumed consequences of divisions in Kazakhstan from that in other, tribal contexts. 63 Another article in the same journal went further, suggesting, "There is no need to fear umbrella clan and clans. It would be appropriate to see knowledge of genealogy [shezhireni zertteu, bilu 1 as the duty of every rooted [in his or her culture 1Kazakh."64 A semiofficial research institute published an anonymous report on "Kazakh Tribalism" that described supposed tribalism as a limited problem that could be overcome by the "continuing modernization" of society.65 A common point emphasized in official versions was that divisions among Kazakhs served to preserve the integrity of the Kazakh people. 66 One response to Piotr Svoik's controversial article from Karavan stated, It seems that P. Svoik likes constantly to play on the supposedly weak chord of our people - our tradition of remembering and respecting our ancestors up to the seventh generation. This tradition, no matter the exotic clannic coloring "experts" like P. Svoik try to lend it, helped to

maintain the strong gene pool of the nation, since it excluded marriage within the clan. The kinship system allowed [us1to distribute pasturage and water fairly and accurately.... If it were not for kinship unions, our ancestors would not have been able to keep control over the expanses in which we live today and those borders of Kazakhstan which are recognized by all of the world community.67 Official discourse emphasized historical moments of ethnic unity. Accordingly, events such as the alliance of the three umbrella clans in 1726 at Ordabasy to counter the threat of a Zhungar invasion from the East were the subject of state-sponsored anniversary celebrations in the mid-1990s. In 1998, when the new capital, Astana, was officially dedicated, a sculpture of three prominent judges from each of the three umbrella clans was unveiled in front of the Supreme Court building with great fanfare and official press coverage. The symbolic fusion of the new state apparatus with the ethnic unity of the clans was made complete. Essentialized depictions of pre-Soviet cultural traits and the purported origins of umbrella clan divisions were designed to defuse the issue. In the context of a resurgent interest in Kazakh customs and history, as many searched for the "real" character traits of Kazakhs, such depictions had an effect. One article, written in English for a foreign audience involved in energy development, downplayed the contemporary significance of subethnic divisions, saying, "The fourcentury existence of the culture of the zhuz has had a strong influence on the ethnic self-consciousness of the Kazakh people. Undoubtedly in the near future its role will be limited by national identification and one's identity as a member of a klan [sic 1or zhuz will gradually become no more than historical property.,,68 While official publications allowed some diversity of opinion, clear limits were imposed on discussion. Any suggestion, for example, that clan divisions be incorporated institutionally into political life was officially unacceptable. One political observer whose commentaries had previously passed muster with state censors was told in 1995 that his article proposing parliamentary set-asides for each umbrella clan could not be published. 69 Likewise, a prominent member of the legislature in 1993 was able to publish a provocative article in Aqiqat in 1994 that suggested a need to clarify the "new rules of the game" between the umbrella clans)O He gradually found himself mar-

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ginalized from official political life and by 1999 was organizing a liberal opposition group called Progress (Orleu) that explicitly opposed tri balism. 71 The regime also attempted to counter this critique through making very public an "anticorruption" campaign. Article 11 of an anticorruption law proscribed family members from being in superiorsubordinate relationship in state structures.72 Suddenly, the removal of akims from office - a frequent occurrence under any conditionswas accompanied by publicized reasons, which often included preferential access to economic and power structures given to relatives. Except for these highly publicized cases, enforcement was weak. One official engaged in the campaign privately lamented that were he to confront subethnic networks directly, his life would be worth about a hundred dollars.73 If the activities of the opposition generated such responses from officialdom, critics of subethnic influence were part of a broader metaconflict with those who sought to depict subethnicity in positive terms. Whereas regional actors sought to promote subethnicity as a virtuous attribute of Kazakhness, the opposition strove to portray it as a backward and negative attribute that hampered reform efforts in the newly independent state. The opposition accomplished this by depicting, for political effect, clan clientelism as rampant. This chapter's arguments have certain implications. To be effective, subethnic criticism requires opacity; those engaged in opaque relationships and who were criticized for conducting clan clientelism were at pains to deny such activities. Were the regime to open the polity and make the bases for political relationships more transparent, the effectiveness of this criticism would likely wane. Such a moveunlikely under the leadership ofNazarbaev-might defuse the metaconflict about subethnic divisions and remove it as an explosive issue from the political agenda.

PART THREE

7 A ViCLoIti C3 c[e? Kiltikir u-d Po [itLcu-[ Cb»-g [Wlith the reproduction of the Kyrgyz [Kazakh 1people, the number of new subdivisions among them increases, and the initial names of generations slowly but surely are consigned to oblivion .... From this we can conclude that in about 100 years, the greater part of the names of subdivisions of the Kyrgyz people we have enumerated will remain only in our archives and in the memory of a few old men.-Aleksei lraklievich Levshin Not to know one's genealogy is unthinkable. -Kazakh proverb

USUALLY UNDERSTOOD TO BE DEEPLY ROOTED IN FACE-TO-FACE

interaction, clan identities in the modern world are in fact constructed, in large part by state action. No longer the paramount wellspring of social and cultural belonging, they were simultaneously transformed and promoted in particular niches by Soviet rule. The shortage economy, which persisted for ordinary people into the 1990S, gave ongoing impetus for clan identities and for the conflict and metaconflict that they inspired. In this sense, state practices give shape to the political role of clans. But this characterization creates a theoretical tension. To the extent that the members of clan networks privilege their own kind, they in a sense manufacture shortages for those who are outside of the clan network. That is, the very practice of clan clientelism by one set of actors itself gives impetus for other sets of actors to rely on their clan background. Clan behaviors by some can reproduce clan behaviors by others. Is clan politics a permanent feature of political life in such 139

M"'->U:.-8"-t; C("'-JU states? Is political change possible, or is it "unthinkable" that clans might be relegated to the "memory of a few old men"? Such a line of inquiry returns us to primordialism. Does not primordialism capture the essential continuity of clan politics over time? Perhaps conceding that her theory cannot explain the particular form that clan politics assumes, a primordialist might argue that her approach nonetheless accounts for the sources of this politics. Primordialists might ask, "Does not a description of deeply rooted affiliations help to account for (1) the raw material that is used in diverse attempts to craft and construct subethnic identities, and (2) the popular resonance of subethnic identity politics?" To what extent can the politics of subethnic identities be seen as percolating bottom-up from closely held group affiliations or, alternatively, as moving top-down from powerful state political agents? This chapter shows that ordinary Kazakhs from ethnically homogenous regions, and especially those from rural locales, attribute important social and political meaning to subethnic identities. But deeply rooted affiliations are not sufficient to explain clan politics. Even rural Kazakhs from predominantly ethnic Kazakh regions (cohorts that, following the logic of both identity modernization and primordial ism, might be the "carriers" of clan identities) are subject to the normative logic of the state. To make this argument, this chapter turns to the spatial dimension. After sketching the historical reasons for in-country variation along the lines of ethnic diversity and rurality, I consider the perspectives of urban migrants, who are uniquely situated to shed light on the question of closely held affiliations. Relatively untransformed by the Soviet experience, Kazakhs who recently migrated from rural and largely mono-ethnic (i.e., homogeneously Kazakh) milieus should manifest strong sub ethnic identities. This is an easy test for primordialism: if there are limits to the bottom-up significance of clan identities among ordinary people from rural, mono-ethnic regions, then we can infer dramatic limits in urban and multi-ethnic milieus.

PARTIAL TRANSFORMATION: THE ORIGINS OF RURALITY AND ETHNIC DIVERSITY

At the onset of Soviet power, Central Asia was one of the most rural of regions in a generally preindustrial Soviet space. Relying on Rus-

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sian and Ukrainian labor (a pattern which would be replicated in the Soviet era), tsarist authorities in the nineteenth century began to mine for copper, lead, silver, coal, and oil, to develop agricultural processing plants, and to manufacture cotton and silk. Hampered by poor transportation infrastructure over long distances, industry had achieved limited scope before Soviet rule. 1 As a consequence, the region had largely avoided the broad-scale disruptions to traditional identity formations that accompany urbanization and industrialization. Blueprints for the construction of Soviet socialism included plans for identity transformation across Soviet territory. A population with a local and rural consciousness, rather than a national proletarian one, was oflittle use to a state undergoing consolidation and dedicated to a particular high-modernist vision. 2 Accordingly, authorities in Central Asia took quite seriously their attempts to fight manifestations of pre-Soviet identities, constructing public ceremonies to "liberate" Muslim women from the veil, conducting censuses to propagate new population categories, and sending so-called agittrains into the region to agitate for the virtues of Soviet power.3 The massive industrialization and collectivization drives were further vehicles for such identity transformations. Soviet efforts appeared to work to genuine social effect, even if they failed by their own criteria. 4 As Rakowska-Harmstone describes, "The impact was massive, the changes irreversible, and the result has been the emergence of a hybrid society in which traditional elements have been inextricably interwoven with the characteristics of a Homo sovieticus."5 Especially in Kazakhstan, education levels rose dramatically, literacy became near universal, and the workforce became increasingly specialized. In 1979, population mobility in Kazakhstan was 4.5 times higher than in Azerbaijan, 3.5 times higher than Uzbekistan, 3 times higher than Turkmenistan, and 2.1 times higher than Tajikistan. 6 By 1970, some 63 percent of Kazakhs were formally considered members of the "working class," although what this designation meant in practice was not clear.7 This brought urbanization, but urbanization with a peculiar cast. It was comprised largely of professionals rather than manual laborers, and of non-Kazakhs rather than Kazakhs. 8 The state intervened to temper these processes. While large-scale migration generally accompanies industrial change, several factors limited the scope of migration in Central Asia. First, labor was often imported from the Slavic regions of the USSR, thus resulting in the

construction of culturally Slavic cities on a Central Asian landscape. The cultural and linguistic gap that emerged was often a barrier against the movement of indigenous groups from rural areas. 9 This was also true of massive agricultural transformations, such as the 1950s' Virgin Lands project to bring under the plow the grazing lands of northern Kazakhstan, which disproportionately relied on external specialists. Second, Soviet authorities kept cotton prices artificially high and hesitated to push the mechanization of agriculture. In part this was a political decision to avoid the potential for destabilization that Soviet authorities feared would accompany large-scale rural-tourban migration. lO Third, urbanization efforts in Soviet Central Asia faced the mediating effects of regional authorities, whose position was enhanced by the administrative structure of the Soviet state. The de facto delegation of significant authority to the oblast level was a characteristic of the polity from its very inception. I I Especially in the agricultural parts of Central Asia, regional leaders were given critical decision-making autonomy. As long as they fulfilled Moscow's directives, local officials were given wide berth to conduct politics in the territories they administered. 12 Moreover, Moscow fostered rivalries between Party secretaries at the regional level, thus structuring competition along these lines. Any Union-wide policies designed to have transformative effects were subject to the tempering influences of oblast first secretaries. The Soviet-era immigration of non-Kazakhs (especially Slavs) into the republic left Kazakhstan with multi-ethnic terrain that transformed the arena for identity politics. In 1999, Kazakhs constituted a majority of the population in only seven of fourteen regions, and their numbers rose above 80 percent in only two of these regions. Ethnic heterogeneity characterized not only the north and northeast, where the Slavic presence was most pronounced, but also the south, where Meskhetian Turks, Germans, Uzbeks, Uyghurs, North Caucasian peoples, and others neighbored Slavs and majority Kazakhs. Among ordinary people in the 1990S, southerners would frequently deride northern Kazakhs as "Russified," and northerners would label southerners as "Uzbeks." The popular recognition ofthe cultural influence of non-Kazakhs was thus widespread. No disaggregated data on ethnic composition at the village level are published, but one local ethnographer described multi-ethnic locales as "rather numerous in contemporary Kazakhstan."13 These

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villages were numerous enough that when the state conducted "ethnocultural expeditions" in 1998 to highlight the cultural traditions of ethnic Kazakhs, local administrators had to be instructed specifically to identify "real" (i.e., mono-ethnic) Kazakh villages where ethnographers would be asked to conduct their research. Left to their own devices, these ethnographers might otherwise have selected from among the country's numerous multi-ethnic villages. 14 In such a culturally and economically variegated landscape, one would expect the primordialist perspective to remain most apt in rural, mono-ethnic locales. These are the milieus that were relatively least transformed by Soviet rule.

URBAN MIGRANTS: A KEY COHORT

. To gain purchase on subethnic attachments in rural, mono-ethnic areas, rural-to-urban migrants aged twenty to twenty-eight were invited to participate in focus groups in three oblasts. Focus groups offer advantages for identity research. First, they reconstruct a group context for a discussion by assembling members of a single cohort. Individual interviews, by contrast, extract participants from the interactive context in which identities find everyday expression. Second, focus groups allow greater agenda setting by participants than do more structured interviews, since the moderator is instructed to allow discussion to evolve without excessive guidance. Focus groups were complemented by nonparticipant observation and individual interviews that took place within everyday contexts. The intention was to use several ethnographic strategies to triangulate the manifestations of subethnic identities in rural areas; a combined approach offers better purchase than a single methodological strategy could in isolation. I5 Migrants were chosen for two reasons. First, a cohort of migrants from various regions provides a window into the social salience of identities across broader territory than would an intensive study of just a few rural sites. 16 The results are therefore potentially more generalizable across space. Second, by definition, migrants are located at the juncture of the urban and the rural. They therefore offer an indication of the processes by which subethnic identities-if they are best understood as percolating bottom-up from ordinary rural residentsmoved into urban milieus and onto the political stage. Thus, to the extent that these migrants were the "carriers" of clan affiliations, any

144

large-scale migration could be expected to increase further the salience of these attachments in urban areas. By the late 199os, migrant communities were a potent social force. Many of the Soviet-era political, economic, and cultural obstacles to mobility evaporated with the Soviet collapse. Where the Soviet system had strictly limited urban migration through its system of resident permits (propiska), the post-Soviet state could only poorly enforce existing rules for residence. The possession of such a permit continued to bolster one's opportunities in education, employment, and housing, but its absence was no longer an insurmountable impediment to migration. Moreover, given the state's broad promotion of the Kazakh language and culture, the cultural gap between the predominantly Kazakh-speaking countryside and the largely Russianspeaking cities began to narrow. Greater acceptance of rural culture in the cities made migration easier. The economic motivation to leave rural areas was the plummet in agricultural production. The livestock sector, for which most of the country is ecologically suited, was hardest hit. Producers rapidly butchered their stocks to pay for consumer goods whose prices had soared. The retreat of the state had worsened health and sanitary conditions, calling into question the medium-term viability of this mode of economy. According to one local expert, as a percentage of 1991 levels, the 1998 numbers had declined precipitously for all types of stock-cattle (42.7percent), sheep (28.1 percent), horses (62.1 percent), and camels (66.6 percent).17 The consequent rural depopulation stretched the social fabric of affected areas in crucial ways. Where once there were large and tight-knit families, now rural populations were disproportionately elderly and female, since younger people and men readily moved to cities. Kin networks now spanned the rural-urban divide. Urban opportunities were marginally better. Many former industrial towns in the north had come to a standstill by the mid-1990S, but the country's largest cities-Almaty and Qaraghandy-continued to offer disproportionate socioeconomic opportunities. Competition for urban jobs was also keen, but the out-migration of a large portion of the Slavic population (especially to Russia, but also to other destinations) lowered its intensity. Gradually, foreign capital found its way to the smaller cities as direct investment, and many state enterprises that had stood idle in the mid-1990s were privatized and resumed oper-

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45

ations. Thus, most urban areas found themselves attracting noteworthy migrant populations. The visual transformation of cities' outskirts was unmistakable, as many migrants took up residence in substandard or jerry-built housing. Official unemployment statistics provide one indication of the migrations' scale. Theoretically, in the absence of urban migration, job losses in rural areas should swell the ranks of the rural unemployed. In fact, as the agricultural economy of post-Soviet Kazakhstan contracted, rural unemployment levels fell. When in 1996 more than 200,000 agricultural jobs were lost, official rural unemployment rose only by 63,362. In 1997, 263,000 more agricultural jobs were lost, and rural unemployment actually shrunk by 42, 366. Assuming that official record keeping in rural and urban areas did not change in these years,18 these data suggest a significant urban migration of out-of-work rural residents. As a consequence of this population shift, the relative composition of the unemployed changed as well. In 1995, 54 percent of those officially registered as unemployed resided in rural areas. In 1996, 49 percent did, while in 1997, the number was 38 percent. 19 All of these changes occurred in a context in which the largely urban Slavic population was dwindling; the scale of the rural-to-urban migration may have been underreported, as the urban milieu could absorb large numbers of migrants without this fact being reflected in urban population statistics. In an absolute sense, the scale of these migrations did not rival that of migrations, for example, to Latin American cities in the second half of the twentieth century. The relative social impact was perhaps comparable, however, given Kazakhstan's population of about fifteen million in 1999. One local scholar, lamenting the influx of migrants, contended that the process was not urbanization and assimilation of migrants into the urban milieu, but the "ruralization" of the city.20 Among ordinary people, the population movement brought an increasing popular awareness of the cultural and linguistic gap between migrants and longtime city dwellers. The frequent use of two pejorative terms attests to the social distance between rural and urban Kazakhs. On the one hand, rural Kazakh speakers decried the Sovietera Russification of urban dwellers by calling them manqurt (one who does not know his or her roots); on the other hand, urban Kazakhs increasingly depicted their country co-ethnics as uncivilized by calling them mambet (roughly: country bumpkin).

This was the context in which focus groups were conducted in three regions. Table 7.1 locates these regions according to two factors that could be expected to alter the social salience of subethnic identities: ethnicity and rurality. Ethnicity is the percentage of the region's population that is ethnically Kazakh. Rurality is the percentage of the region's population that resides in rural areas. T..Me 7· 1

Oblasts by Percent Kazakh and Percent Rural Populations Oblast

%Kazakh

%Rural

Qostanai

29.5

49.7

Aqmolaa

30.8

44.6

North Kazakhstan

31.4

56.5

Qaraghandy

36.5

17.7

Pavlodar

36.8

37.5

Almaty"

39.3

42.2

East Kazakhstan

48.3

42.6

Zhambyl

62.3

54.0

West Kazakhstan

64.9

58.8

South Kazakhstana

65.4

62.1

Aqtobe

67.8

46.1

Mangystau

72.8

19.8

Atyrau a

87.4

41.5

Qyzylorda

92.8

40.4

SOUTce: Komitet po statistike i anaiizu, Regional'nyi statisticheskii ezhegodnik (Almaty: Statkomitet, 1997), 5-47. 54· a Primary research sites

If we begin with assumptions about deeply rooted clan affiliations, we can expect that in predominantly ethnic Kazakh regions (such as Atyrau and Qyzylorda), where assimilative pressures are more limited, clan identities would be strongest, while in less Kazakh regions (such as Aqmola and Qostanai), they would be less salient. Likewise, one would expect that the more rural Kazakh oblasts (such as West Kazakhstan and South Kazakhstan), where the potentially transformative

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47

effects of urbanization were limited in scope, greater still would be the manifestations of these identities. The oblasts selected for study were Atyrau, South Kazakhstan, and Almaty. By comparing Atyrau and South Kazakhstan, we evaluate variation from urban to rural, while providing a rough control for ethnic balance. By comparing Almatyand Atyrau, we vary the ethnic composition, while roughly maintaining levels of urbanization. 21

NO IDENTITY IS PRIMORDIAL

Focus group participants from rural and mono-ethnic regions had relatively stronger kin networks than did those from more urban and multi-ethnic oblasts. 22 Figure 7.1 summarizes the results of a questionnaire, in which respondents were asked upon whom they expected to rely for assistance in the future. Each possible basis for an assistance network received a score from respondents' rankings. These scores establish how strong each network basis was reported to be; the scores here are depicted as percentages of the total possible score. 23 The strongest networks among the respondents were based on relatives. Indeed, these extended families in all three oblasts studied were clearly more important than the bases for other relationships. Adding clan-based networks to these networks of extended family, the picture is a clear one: kinship mattered to these migrants. Tighter kin units (extended family) were important across the three regions; looser kin aggregates (clans) were more important in rural, largely mono-ethnic South Kazakhstan oblast. In no case did clan networks completely preclude other types of relationships. The quantitative variation - itself suggestive rather than statistically significant-is consistent with aspects of modernization theories; those areas more affected by urbanization and increased cultural diversity saw clan ties that were marginally weaker vis-a-vis alternative bases for assistance networks. Urbanization and cultural diversity bring the individual into contact with an array of other individuals with a variety of backgrounds. A person need not rely solely on kinship for assistance in such diverse contexts. Rather, bonds forged on the basis of common interest, rather than common origin, may proliferate. These factors playa role in affecting the salience ofkinship. But the differences in assistance networks across regions should not obscure what is common across them. Urbanization and cultural

Almaty oblast 30

relatives ~

....

~

clan members covillagers

6

OJ

Q

.... ..8 .~

'" oj

.D

20

Kazakhs others

11

3

Russians

27

friends

Atyrau oblast 43

relatives ~

clan members

~

covillagers

....

9

20

OJ

Q

....

..8 .!!l

'" oj

.D

5

Kazakhs others Russians

21

friends

South Kazakhstan oblast relatives ~

clan members

~

covillagers

Q

Kazakhs

....

5~_47 14

12

OJ

....

..8 .!!l

'" oj

.D

5

others Russians friends

_

• • •_20

o

10

20

30

40

50

strength of network (score, as % of possible score)

fisre 7·1.

Assistance Networks by Region

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diversity are not the only factors that influence kin relations. Commonalities across regions are revealed by the particular meanings that migrants attributed to the networks. Their perspectives went beyond the neat concepts and tidy, macrolevel categories of modernizationbased analysis. Much variation lay beneath the surface. By elaborating on some of this complexity, we view subethnicity as a dynamic feature of life in Central Asia, whose direction is shaped critically by the state.

Clans in Context To ask, as primordialist approaches do, which identities are primary "when the chips are down" or "in the final analysis" is to eschew context. Rather than assuming that certain identities are fundamental while others are secondary, focus-group participants pointed to the need to contextualize identities. In the course of discussion, religious, ethnic, and rural/urban identities sometimes reinforced, sometimes competed with, subethnic sentiments. These migrants could not discuss clans in isolation; the divisions were intertwined with many related affiliations. For some, subethnicity was entangled with religious identity as a Muslim.24 Originally from the Zhambyl region in southern Kazakhstan, Zhumabek proclaimed his concern that the focus group would be conducted by foreign religious missionaries: "When Saulesh [native research collaborator J came to me, I thought, 'There are Buddhists and Baptists in the city now. Sort of "societies," where they ask you to come, listen, and have a look.' I told her, 'I am a Muslim [musylman balasymyn)/5 but if it is a religious meeting, then I will not attend.' "26 If Zhumabek harbored such a religious identity, Timur, with whom he sparred on several occasions during the Almaty focus group, expressed profound concern that clans were traditionalistic and therefore a hindrance to the functioning of a market economy.27 In response, Zhumabek contended, "I think that Kazakh youth are coming to [Kazakh J culture and are accepting the faith of Muslimness [musylmandyq J and Islam. One must give oneself up to religion. We must know ourselves." For Zhumabek, clans were like religious divisions; they distinguished titular Kazakhs from the historically dominant Russians. 28 Islam was sometimes seen as the wellspring of subethnicity. Religious authorities were often the possessors of detailed genealogical

M"->1.4S"-E, Ck>ti knowledge in rural communities. In Shaulder, South Kazakhstan region, for example, a local mullah of prominent social status offered an expansive oral history of the region based on the genealogies of dominant groups. In it, he assimilated non-Kazakh Muslims as also kin-related; he understood them as simply one further degree removed from Kazakhs on a genealogical tree. 29 A focus-group participant in Shymkent offered a similar logic, saying, "In the Muslim faith, you may not marry a girl related to you within seven generations. This is what medicine says, too: that marrying within seven generations can lead to sick children."30 For others, discussion of subethnicity naturally led to questions of ethnic belonging. For many informants, ethnicity was akin to subethnicity in the sense that it was experienced by degreeY Slavs were the most distinct "other" and were often simply called "Europeans." Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Tatars, and Uyghurs were generally considered less different, given their Turkic and Muslim background. Here, too, much depended on the situation. Uzbeks and Kazakhs, who might understand themselves as fellow Turkic peoples vis-a-vis Russians or other Europeans, often found themselves in competition in South Kazakhstan, where the Russian population was only getting smallerY The distinction by which Kazakhs had clan identities while Slavs did not led to a related discussion during the focus groups of the ruralurban divide. Common was the refrain that the village was where the "authentic" Kazakhs lived; cities were "European." To migrate meant to face all the pressures of dress, culture, and habit that were of alien origin. One participant used the example of his having a seizure on public transportation in a way that intertwined several related identities: Once when I was riding a bus, I had an attack (Russian: pristup). All the people [on the bus1simply went about their own business. "This person is young, drank a lot of vodka, and must be an alcoholic," they said as they got off the bus. But, if this happened in the village, people, having preserved the essence of Islam, would help. "This is a Kazakh child [bala 1, after all," they would say, asking how they could help. But, in the city it is not like that. I got off at the bus stop, and no one paid attention. They call that humanity! If you die, no one even notices. This is why I am bitter about city people. City life is like that.33

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Given the number of related identities with which subethnicity was intertwined, and given the variety of ways in which this occurred, the independent valence of closely held subethnic affiliations in animating political competition is difficult to establish. No longer the overriding organizing feature of social and political life that it had been before Soviet rule, it intersected with a striking number of other identifications.

Further Axes for Variation Beneath the patterns of macrolevel variation, the strength of clan networks also was influenced by microlevel settlement patterns, personality factors, the monetarization of the economy, and the application of performance criteria. If the quantitative data above considered variation in levels of ethnic diversity and rurality by oblast, each region was itself diverse along these two lines. Much of the importance of kin networks depended on the particular locale in which ordinary people built their relationships. That is, micro settlement patterns had a critical impact on how Kazakhs structured their everyday affairs. Two examples illustrate the wide array of social and cultural milieus in which clan networks were contextualized. On the one hand is Shaulder, a village of 8,300 residents in South Kazakhstan oblast. This oblast is composed overwhelmingly of Elder Clan Kazakhs; Shaulder residents, however, are overwhelmingly from the Middle Umbrella Clan. In fact, almost all residents are from the Qongyrat subdivision among Middle Clan Kazakhs. In this largely homogenous Qongyrat context, the subdivisions among Qongyrats assumed social salience, with Zhetimder, Bozhbandar, Mangytai, and Sanghyl residents living in separate areas relatively clearly defined by the main streets, the local irrigation canal, and the Arys River. Place of residence on this micro scale coincided with genealogical subdivisions.34 A second example shows that, even where subethnic divisions were significant for villagers, they were not necessarily the dominant division. In rural Taldy-Qorghan region, the most salient cleavage crosscut umbrella clan lines. On the one hand were Kazakhs from the Younger and Elder Umbrella Clans who remained in the area continuously under Soviet rule. On the other hand were those Kazakhs from the Middle and Elder Umbrella Clans who had fled to China

in the late 1920S, returning to their original villages in the 1950S and 1960s. The main cleavage was between "Sovietized" Kazakhs and "Hanified" ones.35 Qualitative inquiry reveals another point that the numbers presented above do not: directionality. If in villages such as Shaulder, clan divisions defined residence patterns throughout the Soviet period, in many others such patterns were more recent in origin. The privatization of state and collective farms in the mid-1990S provided impetus. While some farms were transformed into joint-stock companies and cooperatives, many broke down into small-scale private operations run by clusters of related families. Had state-led privatization not privileged small farms, clans would not have been promoted in this way.3 6 Second, restrictions on ownership moved settlement in the direction of clan-based patterns. Whatever type ofland tenure emerged on any particular site, legal ownership was largely reserved to farm workers. As chapter 5 suggested, this excluded those professionals who had been a central part of the rural community during the Soviet periodespecially doctors, teachers, and nurses - but who were not technically members of the farm. Cultural outsiders defined by some degree of ethnic or clan difference, these people were often compelled to move; the state now considered their services to be nonessential and eliminated their positions. In those cases where clan outsiders were entitled to land, they often received parcels of inferior quality.37 Thus, even those areas where Soviet-era settlement had not been structured along clan lines, post-Soviet agricultural privatization promoted clanbased settlement. The overwhelming perspective in the focus groups was that clan networks were pervasive and important. The consensus was that society's power holders provided benefits (especially access to scarce economic and political resources, as well as employment) to their kin. A common refrain was that such actors "bring in their blood" (qanyn tartady). To emphasize this point, one Kazakh-speaking migrant switched to Russian - the language of science and education - to highlight that such kin behavior is a scarcely alterable sociological fact: "That is life. It is a law-like regularity [Russian: zakonomemost'] ."3 8 One participant in Almaty explained how this logic dominated thinking among ordinary Kazakhs: "I was raised in the Kazakh way, as I told you .... For example, would you like it if your relative was poor?

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Or, you are a rich person and occupy a position as a boss [bastyq]. Would you like it [better] if [your relative] was a poor vagrant, or if he/she was rich?"39 At the same time, many participants sought to illustrate the limits to these networks, even among the economic and political elite. For example, with regard to the bases for political appointments made by akims and other local officials, one participant remarked, "If one clan takes over a high-level position, it does not take care of [benefit] only this clan, but in truth take a look at how many other people start to work there! If I were to help only my own clan, this would force out all the other people. If someone wants to help [his/her own clan], let him/her do so .... It seems that you can divide [Kazakhs] into clans, but you can also divide [them] into individuals."40 On a more personal level, migrants often claimed that others used clan ties to find employment or gain admission to universities but glossed over similar behavior in themselves. Almagul, a recent migrant who ran a small stand at a local bazaar in Shymkent, claimed to have come to the city not for economic reasons, but because she preferred the excitement and anonymity of the city. After some probing, she admitted that her husband found a job at a local factory through a clan connection, but maintained that she herself did not know her clan or umbrella clan background. She reported that people talked about these divisions in her village but that she had no interest in them. 41 If many of these migrants availed themselves of kin networks, such connections had limits. According to participants, networks were limited in at least two ways: (1) by bribery and other manifestations of the monetarization of interpersonal relationships, and (2) by the application of performance criteria in some spheres. Once a relationship was established-whether through kinship or not-that relationship had some chance of enduring. Citing a Kazakh proverb, a participant in Atyrau summed up the limits to kin connections: "A person once met is recognizable. A person twice met is reliable."42 The partial and uneven monetarization of the economy allowed cash to provide some access to political, economic, and social goods. Suddenly, those with financial resources found it possible to forge relationships throu'gh easy payment, a practice that could be used to complement or in some cases replace the exchange of favors or the ties of kinship. One participant in Shymkent, in response to a question of

whether or not she had ever thought to herself, "This boss [bastyq 1is from my own clan. He will offer me help," offered the following conclusion: "Today, if you give someone money, then you will have your support. It is all about money."43 Kin and market relations, of course, were not mutually exclusive but rather intertwined in a variety of ways. One respondent's comments suggested that the principles often operated simultaneously. A self-promoter would be wise to consider the use of both: Now, everything is in the riches, in the money. Only if you have a koke [roughly: sponsorJ,44 if you have the money, then things are good. We do not have money; we do not have a koke. If we were to get one, then we would become rich. Here is what we think: if the factories and plants were working, if there were salaries, then no one would be having trouble. Now, everyone is moving from the village. They are coming because there is no work, no money. For example, one family [I know] was given five hectares ofland. They planted it, but they needed water. But, water is expensive. Will they be able to get two or three tonnes of harvest? It is no use. Water, a tractor, a cart-none of them are worth it [the expense). If you can come to the city and get work from your koke, great. There isn't any bread to eat in the village. 45 One recombination of these principles mentioned in chapter 5bears repeating. Kin networks served as a mechanism to identify those nonkin who sought to offer payments, often bribes, for access or protection. The husband of one informant from Almaty, a low-level state bureaucrat, regularly solicited payments from non-kin for state-issued licenses, the greater part of which was passed to higher-level members of his kin network.46 As we saw earlier from another informant, in higher education in Shymkent the kin of instructors were often recruited to act as the instructors' "long ear," to be on the lookout for poor-performing, non-kin students who might seek to pay a bribe in exchange for passing a course. 47 Another informant from the area of higher education in Shymkent had a different experience with this problem. He claimed that having a relative in a high position provided critical information about which officials might accept a bribe for services. If such an official was from the same subethnic division, the informant insisted, he or she still required payment. The distinction he made was that members of a

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clan shared and distributed information about how and to whom to make such payments. Non-kin - for lack of information - were forced to resort to the inefficiencies of formal institutional channels.48 Much of my ethnographic data suggest that a neoliberal, free-market orientation for the state did nothing to limit the salience of kin networks. Rather, market-based poverty strengthened existing networks. To survive the exigencies of such poverty, rural Kazakhs intensified the reciprocal exchange of gifts within kin groups.49 When I asked one informant how he could gain the favor of a well-placed relative, he replied that it was a slow, gradual process. He would first try to make the relative's acquaintance at a celebration (toi) or circumcision ceremony (sundet toi). Then, he would regularly make himself visible in the relative's imagination by purchasing presents at various family celebrations and presenting them with great ceremony. By becoming centrally involved in the exchange of gifts, he was sure, he would gain the confidence of the relative whose help he sought. 50 Kin ties were reaffirmed on a regular basis through ceremonies such as weddings, funerals, and other family occasions. Urban Kazakhs traveling to the countryside were expected to visit all major families in the area, even if only for a short time. At each visit to a home, it was obligatory to stop and have at least a small meal. The belief was that hospitality had not been extended unless food had touched the lips of the guests (auyz tiiu). A relative who did not offer such hospitality, or a visitor to a locale who did not visit to receive it, were seen as seeking to sever the kin bondY In the late 1980s, patrilineally defined agnatic kin in rural areas began conducting regular meetings called gap. Celebrated as family holidays, the meetings provided a venue and reason for relatives to gather once per month. Moreover, they usually served as rotating credit-giving circles. During one such gap in the small town of Shayan, South Kazakhstan region, the group of relatives maintained a rather strict hierarchy within the family. Every new guest to arrive was seated the appropriate distance from the head of the table, depending on his or her status within the group of agnatic kin. At this particular gap, the kin subdivisions of those present became the subject of ongoing jokes and punsY Such reiteration of kin connections, however, was only one side of a complex picture. While some kin networks preserved their integrity in the face of monetarization, others did not. The latter fate was espe-

cially common in small-scale commercial operations. Whereas in the beginning of the 1990S, having a moderately distant relative in a service industry or in the consumer-goods sector would guarantee privileged access, by the late 1990S, such a relative would often charge for services provided. Thus, one informant from Almaty who routinely received free photo-development services in the early part of the decade reported being turned away by a relative in the latter part. 53 Likewise, those entrepreneurs who enjoyed some commercial success received steady streams of relatives seeking favors, but the economic pressure to turn away favor seekers was strong. One successful hotel owner in Shymkent elected to assist certain kin and not others. While the criteria used to make such selections were not evident, the need to limit assistance was clear to such an entrepreneur. 54 Performance criteria, usually considered conceptually distinct from kin-based networks, also interacted with kinship ties. Frequently, blood links prevailed over professional ones. One informant described how a prominent official at a local institute, who was the "head" [Russian: glava 1of his "clan" [Russian: klan l, could not bring himself to fire a poor-performing secretary because she was a blood relative. 55 In other cases, some degree of performance, or promise of performance, was required even among kin. This lies at the core of one focus group participant's comment: "In essence, I came [to the city) to rely on my relatives, but, in order to go to my relatives, I had to show [prove 1 myself, which I did .... "5 6 To sum up: The importance of clan divisions was a variable, not a constant, in the 1990S. Levels of rurality, cultural homogeneity, patterns of settlement at the micro level, aspects of monetarization, and the application of performance criteria all had an impact on the degree to which clan connections were used. On occasion, individual preferences played a role. One migrant to Almaty penned the word "myself" in his questionnaire about assistance networks, apparently asserting that he faced the challenges of city life alone. Constant, however, was the role of the state in making clan identities politically and socially relevant.

The Never-Absent State In the pre-Soviet past, an individual was normatively expected to commit to memory his ancestry to avoid intermarriage among close kin groups. In the 1990S this practice of marital exogamy was not uniformly

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observed; in some locales, the members of close kin groups married with regularity. While the prospect for instant recall of elaborate genealogies was diminished, a normative drive to know one's background persisted. Its source was the state. Reacting to this normative directive, many migrants claimed to have such knowledge, describing it as an essential aspect of everyday life, especially in the villages. When asked if villagers know their genealogies, one participant responded, "Of course they do. There is no one who does not know it. Children are fed it like mother's milk."57 Followup questions, however, revealed that this was an ideal that few villagers could achieve. One participant responded with an evasiveness that was suggestive: "Many know, they know. Especially the older people, they know. They teach the children. There are people who know other people's clan. In our village there are people who have been around and who know their seven generations [tanydy, korgen-

deri bar]." 58 In reality, many found it difficult to recite their background beyond four or five generations. According to one participant explaining this phenomenon, villagers would approach local experts who would recite elaborate genealogies for transcription onto paper. Most no longer committed to memory their background, instead preserving it in written form. 59 In interviews of migrants in Qaraghandy and Almaty conducted by Esenova, interviewees often knew their umbrella clan background and the largest subdivisions, but knowledge seldom went further. Moreover, "migrants named with difficulty the tribal identifications of their best friends or relatives, such as the husbands of their sisters, etc."6o In a follow-up interview, one participarit contended that, "Even among Kazakh speakers, many do not remember. They know that they are supposed to know their seven generations .... They remember what umbrella clan they are from, but not necessarily any further. Some even do not know what umbrella clan they are from." He added that many know the lowest clan subdivision as well, but ancestry between umbrella clan and this lowest subdivision was often unknown. 61 It was not even clear that command of genealogy was stronger in rural than in urban areas. While most participants believed that villagers knew their genealogies better than their city counterparts, one respondent disagreed, saying, "No, I watch these city children. We have a competition ... and when the school kids [gather], the city

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